Nightmare Dream: Tales of Chaos
by Natalie Field
Summary: Poor Hazel just went to sleep and woke up in Wonderland. And why does everyone call her Alice? Rated T for violence. COMPLETE.   Please review.
1. The Rose Wood

**Note: **This is my first fanfic ever written. Goodness knows I'll look back on it one day and say "What was I thinking when I wrote this?". I know some parts seem to come out of nowhere and some parts are rushed, etc. Well, rate and review. Be nice, but be honest. Hopefully you'll enjoy it, at least. ^^

_What is dream and what is reality? It really is hard to tell. The line often gets blurred. But keep this in mind, Hazel dear, all dreams have to end sometime… ~ Tane the Rabbit._

All was peaceful around my house that night. The crickets were chirping and the soft light of the moon streamed in through my bedroom window. The lighting made my black hair appear silver. Not a person was awake in my silent house. Not my little brother or big sister; I couldn't even hear any sign of movement from my parent's room which was next to mine. I was currently staring at the white ceiling above.

It was spring outside, which meant that the horrible, miserable school year was coming to an end.

I sighed, and rolled over, trying to find a comfortable position in order to fall asleep. A few more weeks of absolute torture and I would be free from school—and all the teasing that came with it.

Finally, I felt myself drifting away.

I didn't stay asleep long. I awoke quite suddenly; there was the sweet fragrance of blooming flowers in the air. All was still dark. Something was different, though… My eyes searched the room. Then I saw something that was strange, that I knew had changed: the window was open.

"Ah, so the dreamer has awakened. Welcome to Wonderland, Alice."

My heart skipped a beat. Standing over my bed was a white rabbit… A white rabbit that stood 6 feet tall on its hind legs and wore a tuxedo. He looked almost human with how skinny he was and how he stood. But he was, clearly, a rabbit. Many thoughts occurred to me. One was that I was dreaming; white rabbits dressed in tuxedos could not exist. The other wondered why he had called me Alice when my name was certainly not "Alice". And I couldn't quite believe he had mistaken me for somebody else, because the idea that a rabbit in a tuxedo would be looking for anybody was ludicrous.

"This is my house," was what I ended up saying. The rabbit grinned (could rabbits grin?).

"No, Alice dear, this is Wonderland," he said. "Jump outside the window and you will see soon enough." I did not move. This was my house. It looked exactly like my house at night… Only there was the smell of flowers and the window was open.

"But I'm not Alice," I said, confused. The rabbit looked mildly surprised.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I thought all outsiders were called Alice," he said. "What are you called, then?"

"Hazel," I answered. I simply couldn't believe I was conversing with a rabbit. The rabbit in turn laughed (could rabbits laugh?).

"Well, Hazel dear, time is escaping. Let's go," he said. I wished then that he would stop calling me _dear_. He shook his head reprovingly when I did not move. "If you do not get up now I fear I shall have to carry you. And I'm sure you don't want that, do you?"

I found myself left with no other alternatives but to go, however confused I was, with a rabbit into the mysterious world of "Wonderland". I slipped out of bed and found to my surprise that I was actually dressed in my favourite pair of jeans and a t-shirt—not my pajamas. And my contacts must have been in too, because I realized I could see clearly. I looked on my dresser beside my bed and was even more so surprised to find that the book I had been reading before I fell asleep wasn't there. So this really isn't my house after all, I thought. Which sounded ridiculous, but it had to be the truth.

"Hop this way," the rabbit said, "not literally of course." He gestured to the open window. I did wonder then why we weren't going to attempt to go out the front door, but did not point this out.

"Do I just…jump out?" I asked. The rabbit nodded.

"Why, what other way is there?" he asked of me. I didn't answer. I felt then that nothing could really surprise me. Or perhaps I was in a state of shock. Probably both, now that I think back on it.

I crouched awkwardly in the window and looked outside. It was strange. The room all about me was drenched in moonlight, but although I was looking outside I could see nothing. There was no moon and it was very dark.

I'm crazy for doing this, I thought. And then I jumped out of the window.

I had been expecting somewhat of a short fall. It lasted much longer than I thought it would. I let out a scream. Naturally, I expected that when we hit ground we'd be seriously injured. Or dead. However, the landing was… soft. Not something I had anticipated. As soon as we hit ground, I realized it was light out again. The moon was high up above. A full moon. I was sitting on the ground.

"We're not dead," I said bluntly. The rabbit happened to be standing.

"Of course we aren't, Hazel dear," was his reply. "You must remember that you are in Wonderland now." I was confused, because simply telling me that we were in Wonderland did not answer how we survived such a fall. I didn't say anything and got to my feet. The rabbit looked me up and down.

"Hmm… you aren't used to falling and managing to land properly," he said. "It will come with practice."

"You mean there are more places you have to fall from around here?" I asked. I wasn't keen on the feeling falling gave me. The rabbit simply stared. "Never mind," I said, groaning. "Don't tell me the answer." I looked about my surroundings. We were in a forest, or at least what appeared to be a forest. It was only when I began to look closer when I realized something was very different about this particular place. There were no trees. The things that looked like trees, they were roses. Giant, giant roses. And of course, there were lots of thorns. But the roses' petals were… white. Not red.

"What is this place?" I asked.

"This place? It doesn't have a name. It's a very small forest, you see," the rabbit said. "If we call it anything at all we call it the Rose Wood." What he said struck me as odd. To me, this place seemed so unusual and spectacular that I had thought it must have a name. We walked in silence. I continued to follow until I realized I had no idea where we were headed.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"I cannot answer that question, Hazel dear," the rabbit said, continuing to walk on. I froze. Why couldn't he tell me? There had to be a reason. If he couldn't tell me, it wasn't a good reason. Not in my eyes it wasn't.

"I'm not going with you then."

The rabbit turned to face me. His eyes which had been black before now flashed red… And he looked much fiercer now, much more aggressive. I was startled and stepped backwards.

"You have no choice in the matter," he said. His voice was cold. "There are many creatures of darkness that lurk in Wonderland, Alice, just like creatures of darkness lurk in one's heart. If I were to leave you here they would surely devour you. I know you, Alice dear, and you of all people would not want that."

"I'm not Alice," I said, growing scared. He didn't pay attention to me.

"Alice, you must come with me now, for we are short on time. I cannot be late. If I arrive with you late, then that will be bad, very bad…" he said. He advanced towards me. "I suppose you will not come. I must force you, then, to come with me."

He's mad, I thought, he's a demented bunny. Well of course he was. He was wearing a tuxedo for Pete's sake, standing like a human, speaking human. Rabbits just don't do that. At that moment, though, I could not see the humor in the situation. Rabbit or not, he was going to kidnap me and drag me to who knows where. Not someplace good. He kept advancing towards me and I felt a rush of adrenaline.

I ran.

The rabbit ran after me, and I realized just how fast he actually was. It was dark despite the full moon, so I kept running into things. He was gaining on me. I continued to run, forcing myself to go faster. I turned this way and that, trying to lose him and looking for possible hiding places.

That's when I ran right on into one of those giant roses. That's also when I cried out in pain because a large thorn pierced my right shoulder. I staggered, then fell to the ground. I huddled at the base of the huge rose, clamping my left hand to my shoulder. There was blood, I could feel it. And the cut was deep. I was tired, I was frightened, and I couldn't keep running. Wonderland indeed, I thought darkly. I looked around. There was no demented bunny rabbit to be seen. Had I really gotten awa—

A wave of dizziness hit me. Exhaustion, I thought. Blood loss. The two magic words the equaled out into the perfect storm. But I had to move on. I couldn't just sit here and sleep in the Rose Wood, could I? I forced myself to stand. It wasn't my most brilliant moment. My vision went fuzzy—the fuzzy like you see on a TV screen. Then, as though somebody had flicked off a light switch, everything went black. I suppose I must have fallen to the ground. It wasn't until morning that I woke up.

When I began to come to my senses, I nearly forgot everything that had happened to me. Then I remembered it all; demented rabbits, the Rose Wood, Wonderland. But when I opened my eyes I was looking up into a blue sky. In the Rose Wood I had not been able to see much of the sky because the roses were like trees. I sat up. I was lying down in a field of what appeared to be wildflowers. On closer inspection I figured out the flower petals were made of… well, whaddya know, hard candy. Then the thought hit me: how in the heck did I get _here_?

"You're in a bad situation, miss, did you know that?"

I sat up extremely quickly, which caused a bit of dizziness. I steadied myself. Sitting down on the grass across from me was a boy who appeared to be around my age or older. He wore a black cloak, though his hood was down, so I could see his facial features. He had black hair and strange silver eyes. His eyes made me feel a sudden wave of fear I wasn't prepared for, though I didn't know why. When I locked eyes with him, however, he smiled at me. It was a bit of a mischievous smile, looking back on it.

"Yes, I do realize that," I said after a moment's pause. "Who are you?"

"Ah, well, people around here call me Terror if they call me anything at all," he said. No wonder, I thought. It's his eyes. There was another pause. I didn't know quite how to respond.

"Nice to meet you," I said eventually. "My name's Hazel." Terror arched his eyebrows.

"Not Alice, then?"

I felt myself grow slightly irritated.

"No. Not Alice. I don't even know who Alice is."

Terror looked thoughtful for a moment.

"So I see," he said. I dropped my gaze to where I was sitting.

"Umm…" I trailed off. "Last night… How exactly did I get here?" Terror stood up and dusted himself off.

"Ah, last night I was walking through the Rose Wood," he said, "and I happened to spot Tane. I wondered what he was up to and then I stumbled over you. You were unconscious and had that cut on your arm so I brought you over here, suspecting that you had run away from Tane."

"Tane?" I echoed.

"The rabbit in the tux."

So that's his name, then, I thought. Tane.

"Might I ask why he was after you?" Terror asked. I sighed.

"I think it was because I refused to go with him when he wouldn't tell me where we were headed," I said. Terror looked surprised, then grinned.

"So you aren't the type to just follow people blindly, huh?"

I laughed a little at the question.

"No, I guess not. Speaking of which, you aren't going to try and drag me somewhere either, are you?"

"No, I was not planning on doing something like that," Terror said. "If you want to know, I was told by somebody that an Outsider had entered Wonderland and that I should bring them to a certain castle. But I can't force you to come with me."

So the guy had been ordered to bring me somewhere. It's better than being forced, I reflected. At least this time I had a choice. I picked at a flower.

"Why is it that so far everybody is after me?" I asked.

"Because you're an Outsider," Terror said simply. I stared at him.

"And this is significant because…"

"Because anybody who claims the life of an Outsider becomes the ruler of Wonderland."


	2. Sweet Lullaby for Alice

**Note: sorry if you had to wait for this, if you were waiting. And thanks to anybody who happened to review. I really appreciated it, even if you didn't have anything good to say. ^^ Oh yeah, and I don't own Alice in Wonderland. xD**

_Anybody who claims the life of an Outsider becomes ruler of Wonderland._

The words echoed over and over in my head. It took a second or two for my mind to wrap around what Terror had just said. I stared at him wide-eyed and pale faced.

"So what you're saying," I said slowly, "is that, basically, people here who want to become ruler of Wonderland will kill me." Terror shrugged, then nodded. Panic began creeping upon me again.

"Listen, don't worry about it," Terror said.

"Don't worry about it?" I said incredulously. "Right. Don't say that unless you have a good reason." Terror opened his mouth to say something, then seemed to think twice before doing so.

"You know, the reason for why people do things around here is pretty mixed up," he said. I had a feeling that wasn't what he had been about to say. But I let it drop.

"I kind of get that feeling," I said. The demented bunny proved that, if nothing else.

"And what makes you say that?" Terror asked.

"This place gives me a weird feeling," I said. I didn't know what else to say.

"What do you mean by 'a weird feeling'?"

I tried to place a finger on it. Then the answer hit me and slipped easily out of my mouth.

"It feels like a dream," I said. "And, you know, like everything isn't what it all seems at first glance." I looked at Terror, who wearing an amused expression.

"What?" I said, beginning to feel a little foolish. Terror shook his head.

"Nothing, nothing," he chuckled. "It's just… No, never mind." Of course, I grew frustrated that he wouldn't tell me what he was going to say and curious as to what that thing was.

He knew things, I decided. He just couldn't say them… for some strange messed up reason or another. He chose this moment of silence to look up at the sun. That's another thing about Wonderland—one could look directly at the sun and not be blinded.

"It's already midday," he murmured. Then he turned to face me. "We'd better get going." That's when I learned that even time itself was wacked.

"Going where, exactly?" I asked. If he didn't answer, I wouldn't go.

"To that certain castle I was telling you about," he said.

Oh yeah, I thought. That castle he was ordered to bring me to. And what sort of insanity would be there? Heck, what about the people there? Were they even… people? Terror's good, I told myself. He seems to be answering my questions with straight answers. He wasn't going to bring me to someone who would kill me… The idea seemed impossible. He's not suspicious or anything, even if he does seem mysterious, I decided.

"Any possessed and or demented bunny rabbits there?" I inquired.

He laughed.

"Not in the castle I'm talking about," he said. "You coming?"

I was able to smile.

"I'm in. Goodness knows I'm lost in this place without somebody who's used to abnormally weird stuff."

"You call this weird? Weird is normal here." Terror offered me his hand.

"Oh good. I'll fit right in." I took it and he helped me up. And then his eyes grew serious.

"Heh. Maybe you will. Maybe you really will."

The comment and the change in tone surprised me. I wasn't sure how to take it. It almost seemed like a compliment. And in other ways, it didn't. There was part of me that thought that what he said could be really bad. What if I wasn't supposed to fit in? Maybe fitting in wasn't so good in Wonderland. Not when I was what they called an "Outsider". Stop it, I told myself firmly. You don't even know anything about this place. Stop taking wild guesses.

"Where are we?" I asked randomly, trying to break the silence. I hadn't realized it, but we were out of the candy meadows we had been in before. The grass and flowers had thinned out and now we were walking in a large, vast, flat area. The ground was hard, and when the sun glinted on it in a certain way, I swore I thought the sand all around was multicoloured. Terror stared into the sky.

"We are in the Desert of Glass," he answered momentarily. I looked down at my feet and peered closer at the sandy ground. Or at least… I had thought it was sand. But what I thought was sand was apparently glass. Small, multicoloured pieces of glass.

"Wouldn't it be bad if a piece flew into your eye?" I said. Terror snorted with laughter. I glared at him.

"And only you would think to ask that," he said, still laughing. He says it as though he knows me so well already, I thought.

"To answer your question, I've never really thought about it. Nobody here does. If something happens to someone, they fix it for themselves," he said.

What he said ended up hitting close to home. Memories of school flashed before me. _I can't… do anything myself._ Looking back, it was not the smartest moment to think that way. And then I heard a noise that made my blood run cold. It was an eerie, high pitched wine. I stopped walking abruptly.

"What was that?" I said in a low whisper. Terror arched his eyebrows.

"I didn't hear anything," he said calmly. "What do you…" He trailed off as the high pitch voice wined again, this time louder. His eyes flashed and seemed to change.

"What is it?" I asked again, more panicked this time.

"It's a Devourer," he said. "A creature of darkness."

Any colour that had remained in my face left me then. But Terror seemed to be enjoying the situation. His face cracked into a strange grin that I had never before seen on him.

"I hope you know how to fight, Alice," he said. I stared at him.

"My name is Hazel," I said, alarmed. Who, I thought fiercely, is this _Alice _everybody mixes me up with? And why did Terror expect to be able to fight? Because, I told myself, we're in Wonderland. Of course. The silly place where things never make sense.

"Well you're going to have to, Alice dear," he said. His voice sent shivers down my spine. He looked directly at me and our eyes locked. "Because here it comes." His eyes were red, blood red, even though before they had been silver. They paralyzed me and sent a wave of fear washing over me. I stood still, unmovable, even as an enormous black shadow soared over my head and landed in between me and Terror. I barely registered it, the fact that the creature was huge, a cross between a panther and a wolf, its yellow eyes… It opened its mouth, but it opened sideways, and its whole head seemed to split in half as it roared.

_There are many creatures of darkness that lurk in Wonderland, Alice, just like creatures of darkness lurk in one's heart. If I were to leave you here they would surely devour you_…

The Devourer lunged at me.

It would surely consume me, because I simply couldn't do anything for myself…

_Don't die yet, you idiot. Save yourself. _An unfamiliar voice echoed in my head.

I snapped out of the trance I had been in. I was hardly thinking then. I reached down to the ground and picked up a handful of glass. I threw it into the Devourer's face.

The shards of glass flew into its eyes and it screamed in agony, a low, terrible moan. Then, quite suddenly, it melted into shadow and faded away. Terror stood over the place where the beast had once been, a knife in his hand, staring at the ground. When he looked up at me, his eyes were silver again.

"Well that was quite something, wasn't it, Hazel?" he said. I stared at him, ashen faced. After what he had done, he now acted like nothing had happened at all. Like he hadn't called me "Alice" and hadn't gone slightly insane. But a large part of me did not want to ask him as to why that happened. I didn't want to know the answer. I unclenched the fist that had scooped up the glass.

"Yes," I said. "It was." I let out my breath. Terror laughed.

"I bet you didn't know you could fight," he said.

"You call throwing glass into a monster's face fighting?"

"Well, whatever works."

Naturally, silence ensued. I couldn't help but think about that voice that had broken me out of my so called 'state of helplessness'. Had it been out loud? Or just in my head? I wanted to believe that it was not in fact in my head, because otherwise that would mean that certain people in Wonderland could hack into people's brains. And goodness knows I did not want that.

"You know, you heard that thing before I did," Terror commented. I peered sideways at him.

"I realize this. I'm assuming that's because I was paying more attention to my surroundings. And I've always had sharp ears," I said.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "You're an Outsider. Outsiders aren't supposed to be able to do that. They're supposed to take a long time to adapt." A small fear began creeping upon me. I thrust it away.

"Well, you know me. I'm special," I said. Terror looked thoughtful for a moment.

"I have heard that Outsiders often gain unexpected gifts when in Wonderland," he said. "Usually it is something they've always been good at, but in Wonderland the gift is… amplified." I puzzled over what he said.

"But I've never been good at adapting. I can't—" I was interrupted.

"Don't think like that," he said harshly. "That's what the Devourers are attracted to." I blinked.

"Devourers are attracted to people who think 'I can't' and stuff like that?"

"Yes. More specifically, Outsiders who think like that."

I kicked at a large piece of glass in anger.

"Why does everything in this place seem to be after me? Other than the whole killing thing?" I said furiously. Terror glanced at me, looking cautious.

"Well, I know somebody who is after you for one reason," he began, "You see…"

I chose a very inconvenient time to trip and fall. I stopped myself from falling completely by putting out my hands first. Unfortunately this meant I got what looked (and felt) like thousands of mini papercuts on them. Terror was chuckling.

"I already know I'm a walking disaster," I muttered, which made him laugh harder. I looked at the ground to see what I had tripped over. Strangely, it was a handheld mirror. A very nice one at that, for the handle was made out of gold, and was decorated with sapphires.

"Oh, well would you look at that. You tripped over a Looking Glass," Terror said.

"A Looking Glass?" I said, puzzled.

"Yes. There are a couple of Looking Glasses about Wonderland. They transport you to the nearest big city. This one, if I am correct, transports you to the City of Glass," he said. So there are more places made out of glass, I thought. I wasn't sure whether or not I liked that, as the cuts on my hand stung because of glass.

"So… are we to travel through it?" I asked. Terror nodded.

"Jump right in. Ladies first."

I got a sinking feeling in my stomach.

"Does this mean… we're going to be falling, possibly?" I said, my mouth going a bit dry. He arched his eyebrows.

"Of course."

I frowned.

"Naturally," I said. "And how is one to, er, jump in? It looks a bit small." Terror shook his head.

"Honestly," he said. "Size doesn't matter. You'll see."

I found this quite ridiculous sounding. I leaned over the Looking Glass, my black hair getting in my eyes, and stuck a tentative finger on the glass. Before anything happened, I caught a look at my reflection. Only, it wasn't my reflection. It was the face of a blonde haired girl with long hair, looking rather critically at me. I was startled at first, but had no time to think. For suddenly, the finger touching the glass began to feel hot and I felt very dizzy all at once. The last thing I saw was Terror's mischievous grin, and then everything around me melted into a whir of colour and lights. I felt like I was falling, though I heard a strange musical sound in the background, sung like a lullaby…

_Alice jumped through the looking glass_  
_Into a world so grand  
__She fell, fell, very fast_  
_And found her Wonderland_

_Why so sad, Alice dear_  
_Why so sad, indeed_  
_You came back to our Wonderland_  
_In our time of need_

_It's a world of dreams, Alice_  
_But at times it gave you a scare_  
_Because dreams have the habit_  
_Of turning into nightmares_

_Roses' petals were so white_  
_And there was a feeling of dread_  
_As, with a sharp knife in hand,_  
_Alice turned the petals red…_

The next thing I knew I was sitting on the ground, staring at a starry night sky on a street of sorts. All about me were tall buildings of many colours, skyscrapers, people and creatures walking… I stood up slowly, and realized that the street I was on was made out of smooth, turquoise coloured glass. Of course, I thought. It's the City of Glass after all. My thoughts wandered.

_Alice jumped through the looking glass… _

The tune haunted me still.

"What," I whispered to myself, "was that all about?"

"What was what?"

I looked up, expecting to see Terror. Instead I saw a boy of possibly 14, kind of dirty looking, but he had… had… ears. And a tail. More specifically, cat ears and a cat tail.

"Who are you?" I managed to stammer out. The boy's tail twitched.

"I am the Cheshire Cat. It's a pleasure to meet you, Hazel dear," he said, bowing. I was now, if possible, more shocked than before.

"You called me Hazel," I said. The Cheshire Cat grinned, a large, large grin.

"You prefer Alice, then?" he said, purring.

"No," I said quickly. "Hazel is good. But how do you kn—"

"You don't remember me? '_Don't die yet, you idiot. Save yourself.'_" He stood proudly, hands behind his back.

"You?" I said incredulously. "You were that voice?"

"The Cheshire Cat is capable of many things. Talking to people inside their own head, disappearing for a while, those are just a few things I can do," he said, twirling his tail about with his hand now. I wasn't sure what to say. Thankfully, Terror suddenly appeared right next to me. Standing, of course, I noted. I still had to work on landing properly.

"Sorry, that took longer than expected—oh, I see you've met the infamous Cheshire Cat, Hazel," he said.

"Yes," I said. "Apparently he followed us on our journey here."

The Cheshire Cat grinned ruefully. Terror laughed.

"Interested in the Outsider, I take it?" he said. The Cat shook his head.

"Only partly," he said. "But what I want to know is what you heard, Hazel."

"What I heard where?" I said, playing dumb. The Cheshire Cat laughed.

"_Tch, _Hazel. You can't fool me. What did you hear on your journey through the looking glass, dear?" he said in a teasing tone of voice. Terror's brows furrowed.

"You heard something in the Looking Glass?" he asked me. I decided that hiding it would be impossible.

"A lullaby," I said, nodding my head. The Cheshire Cat began to look very curious.

"Did you, now?" he said in a low whisper. "How interesting." Terror, however, looked as though somebody had clonked him on the head with a brick.

"And what sort of voice was singing it?" he asked. I closed my eyes, trying to remember.

_As, with a sharp knife in hand,_

_Alice turned the petals red…_

I opened them again.

"It was a woman's voice. She was almost whispering it," I said momentarily. The Cheshire Cat grinned yet again.

"I see. So Terror, you know who it is, don't you?" he said. Terror glared hard at the Cat.

"And why would I?" he said. The Cheshire Cat snickered.

"Oh no reason, no reason," he said. I looked curiously at Terror. Did he know something? I couldn't tell. He hid his eyes from me.

"Aren't you two supposed to be going somewhere?" the Cheshire Cat questioned. Terror jumped.

"Oh, right. Come on, Alice, let's go— " he began, but I cut him off.

"Stop calling me 'Alice'!" I said fiercely. When he looked at me, surprised, his eyes were red. The Cheshire Cat chuckled.

"Oh my. Madness got to you, did it, Terror?" he said. The red in Terror's eyes faded.

"No! Sorry, Hazel. I didn't mean to," he said. I ignored him. I turned towards the Cheshire Cat.

"What do you mean by 'Madness'?" I asked.

"Everybody here has a bit of Madness. Sometimes when we let our concentration slip, the Mad part of ourselves take over. It's as simple as that," he answered. Then he added pointedly, looking at Terror, "And some people are better at controlling it than others."

Mad? They're all mad here? Well that makes sense, I thought, a bit sarcastically.

"And that's why sometimes you call me 'Alice'?" I asked Terror.

"Sometimes there are situations where the Madness can't be avoided," he muttered. I take that as a yes, I thought.

"But… Why call me 'Alice'?" I said. Both the Cat and Terror grew silent. I began to feel impatient. "Come on, fess up."

"Because, Hazel dear, the first Outsider that ever came to Wonderland was called 'Alice'. And now Alice is the Queen of Hearts," the Cheshire Cat said at length.

"So she rules everything around here?" I said. He nodded. "And so, since I'm an Outsider too, you mix me up with her in your so called 'state of Madness'." The Cheshire Cat opened his mouth to speak yet again, but Terror interrupted him.

"It's not as simple as that. But right now, that's all we can tell you. We've got to get going," he said. I didn't move.

"You're pulling off a demented bunny," I said irritably. "You're not telling me something important." He looked at me, his eyes pleading with me.

"I'm telling you all you need to know. Now come on."

I stood my ground. Just then, something hit me. Terror had said he was going to take me to a castle… Alice was the Queen of Hearts, the ruler over Wonderland. Alice wouldn't want anybody to kill me and overthrow her. So Alice would want to order somebody to take me to her castle, maybe lock me up… Maybe even kill me herself…

"Terror," I said slowly, my voice trembling, "answer me this. Are you working for Alice?"


	3. Alice, dear

**Note: Sorry about the wait and the fact that I deleted this story momentarily. I found ONE detail (funnily enough, just a certain character's hair colour) that I had accidentally overlooked, and I had to change it. And in the process, I accidentally deleted my story. Well, now it's back. Sorry once again.**

**Also, apologies for the late update—one of my many talents is procrastinating. **

**Also, I do not own Alice in Wonderland. I should think that is obvious. **

_Terror…Answer me this. Are you working for Alice?_

I stood there. There was nothing but dreaded silence. The lullaby still rang in my ears, its lyrics painting awful pictures in my head. Terror did nothing, said nothing.

"So you are working for her then?" I pressed. The Cheshire Cat, meanwhile, was looking reprovingly in Terror's direction.

"No. I'm not," Terror said. "I am taking you to a different castle."

I wasn't satisfied yet.

"Are you taking me to somebody who wants to kill me, then?" I asked. Before, I hadn't been worried. Now I was. Terror shook his head.

"No. I'm not," he said. "And there's something you should know. I don't follow orders from Alice."

That surprised me.

"But don't you all have to obey her orders?" I said. The Cheshire Cat was strangely silent.

"Yes," Terror said quietly. "We do. But some choose not to do so." I turned to the Cat.

"And what about you?" I asked him. He looked up and shrugged.

"I don't pick sides," he said.

I sighed.

"Fine then," I said. "I'll go with you. One last question though." Terror was smiling again.

"Go ahead," he said.

"Why have none of you tried to kill me?" I asked. The question seemed to be unexpected, at least by Terror. He looked taken aback. The Cheshire Cat's ears simply twitched.

"Like I said, Hazel, I don't choose sides. I follow Alice when I want to and sometimes I don't follow her," he said.

"And, just so you know, I don't want anybody to rule Wonderland," Terror said. "Not even me." Warm relief seeped through me. I hadn't realized then how much of a blow it would have been to me if he had in fact been planning on betraying me.

"Good," I said fervently. "Me neither. It would make everything much less complicated." The Cheshire Cat looked very amused at my saying this.

"On the other hand, Hazel, I think it wouldin fact make things much more… _chaotic_," he said. Terror glared murderously at him.

"Anyway, I should go or that blasted Hatter will have my head," the Cheshire Cat said. He paused. "Though last time he did that I still managed to get it back. Goodbye, Hazel dear." And with that quick farewell he vanished, his smile remaining longest before it too faded. I had to fight the urge to ask Terror, 'Did that make any sense to you?'. I decided against doing so. Chances were it probably did.

"Well, it's night. We should sleep while it lasts," Terror said. I complied, following him. I hadn't realized how tired I was, exactly. Now that he mentioned it… I felt the overwhelming need for a bed. More than was natural, I would realize later. I barely registered walking through crowds of people and laying down a bed in a building of glass… And the second I closed my eyes I heard something…

_You don't want to be among mad people, Alice?_

It startled me, and I wanted to stay awake to see who said it. This time it was not the voice of the Cheshire Cat. But I found myself falling asleep against my own will. I couldn't help but close my eyes and drift away.

There were mirrors everywhere. On the floor, on the ceiling, on the walls. I looked at my reflection. I was in my regular clothing, my hair tousled, my eyes confused. I reached out to touch the mirror in front of me. Then my reflection changed. A girl that was clearly me, but not me, walked forwards in the mirror. She had to be me, but her hair was blonde and she wore a blue dress…

_Roses' petals were so white  
And there was a feeling of dread  
As, with a knife in hand,  
Alice turned the petals red…_

The girl in the mirror, me, now held a knife in hand.

_See she dances with her dagger  
Deep in her heart, fear resides  
She's not afraid of Wonderland,  
But the locked Madness inside…_

I was paralyzed and couldn't move, even as my reflection stepped out of the mirror and advanced towards me.

_Afraid to be among the mad  
When we are all mad here  
Come, Alice, walk closer now  
Come face your darkest fear…_

The girl that was not me, but clearly me, smiled. A sweet, simple smile. She was close to me, so close… And then she lunged forward with the dagger. I collapsed.

The last thing I remember seeing were white roses, slowly turning red, and I wondered how they got there…

"Hazel."

I opened my eyes. The amused face of Terror was looming over me.

"You know, you sleep like a rock," he said as soon as I sat up. "And you were completely out of it as we were traveling here." I yawned.

"You would be out of it too if you missed a couple of night's sleep," I said. "But sorry you had to deal with me." He laughed. I, meanwhile, looked around, because I had no idea where we were. The memory of last night before hitting the pillow simply wasn't there. I was in some strange room (walls and floors all made of glass) and it appeared the only thing in the room was, in fact, the twin sized bed I was sitting in. How odd…

"I hate to ask this for the millionth time," I began, "but wh—"

"—We are in one of the Hatter's many rooms and we had better get out before he figures out we spent the night here," Terror said before I could even get the whole question out.

"The Hatter?" I echoed.

"Yes. The Hatter. Actually, he's known as the Mad Hatter as well, and he can be set off at the slightest things. We should go," he said firmly. I was reminded of something, however... _You don't want to be among mad people, Alice? _

"Okay. We're leaving," I said, flinging off the covers and leaping out of bed. I was in the same clothes as I had been two nights ago which grossed me out, slightly. And my hair was a complete disaster. "I'm a mess." I looked at Terror. How did he manage to look absolutely perfect (hair and all) despite the fact he had gone through the same thing as me? He tried extremely hard not to laugh. He opened his mouth to say something, but was suddenly disrupted.

"Did somebody say they were a mess?"

We both turned around at the same time to see a very weird person standing in the doorway. He was dressed in a pinstriped suit, held a white important looking cane, and wore a striking red hat. His eyes were hard to look at because their colour kept changing at an alarming speed. Terror looked very surprised, but after a moment's pause gave a bit of a bow. I simply stared because I had no idea what was going on. It took a lot to swallow the question, "And who are _you_?"

"Hazel, this is the Hatter," Terror murmured. He looked up to face the Hatter again. "And I'm sorry we stayed the night without permission…"

The Hatter smiled (it was a very lopsided smile).

"No need to apologize," he said. He turned to me. "Nice to meet you, Alice."

"Hazel," I corrected automatically. The Hatter looked slightly confused.

"Oh. Sorry, Alice." His face brightened up considerably. "I'll get some tea." He was about to leave the room. Before he did so, he said, "And there are clothes in the dresser for you, Alice dear." Then he walked off.

"He doesn't always act this way," Terror said momentarily. "But be thankful he's like this now." I nodded.

"What did he mean by dresser?" I said. I looked about the room. And there it was. Right next to the bed stood a dresser. "That wasn't there before." Terror did not look surprised.

"So?" he questioned, and I couldn't give an answer. "I'll leave for a moment. You change." And then he, too, left me.

I tried not to think too hard. If I did, I would start to get a headache. Instead I walked towards the dresser and looked for some clean clothes. And there it was. In the first drawer. A pretty, cotton, sky blue dress. I couldn't help but remember watching a reflection of me, dancing and laughing in that same dress, holding a knife, suddenly lunging forwards with it…

Not that dress, I decided. I opened the next drawer. There it was again_, _that blue dress. I shut it quickly. This place… I opened the next drawer, and the next one. All it held was the same dress, over and over again. I know I shouldn't have detested a stupid dress that much. It was just a dress. It meant nothing. I took the blue dress out. I stared at it.

There was a strange sense of helplessness as I put it on. Like I was being forced to do this. Like there was nothing I could possibly do, that I was becoming…

Don't think about it, I thought fiercely. I looked in the mirror. The dress barely reached over my knees. But it did feel nice. There was something weird about it. I didn't like how it fit so perfectly and how I wore it so well. I dearly wished that something about it would look wrong on me. On my feet I pulled on some white stockings and a pair of plain black shoes (all of which I found in the drawer). They fit me perfectly as well. I turned away from my reflection. I couldn't stand looking at myself. I was scared my reflection would turn into that girl, that girl that was clearly me but couldn't possibly be me…

I opened the door. There stood Terror, who stumbled back in surprise when he saw me. I swear I saw the beginnings of Madness in his eyes.

"Don't start calling me Alice," I said. He blinked.

"And why would I do that?" he said. "You do look different though." My heart skipped a beat.

"I know. It's this dress. It really doesn't look good on me," I said quickly. He shook his head.

"No. It really makes you…" he trailed off. He stared at me, hard. "You don't look like an Outsider." I had to stop myself from shouting, "Don't say that!"

"This place," I said, "is really starting to get to me." It was true. I was even starting to _feel_ different.

"I can see that," said Terror, which made me feel all the worse. The Hatter chose this moment to barge into the room.

"And what," he said in a trembling, angry voice, "are you two doing here, uninvited?" I suppose his sudden change of mood should not have surprised me, but it did. Terror grimaced.

"But you did invite us," he said. "Just now." The Hatter glared at him.

"Well now I've changed my mind," he said. His gaze fell on me. "Who are you, girl?"

"Hazel," I said, even though I had already told him this.

"You think me mad?" he questioned me, which was exactly what I had been thinking. "You should see yourself, darling. You look half mad yourself."

"What do you mean?" I asked, my throat tight. I refused to look in the mirror. I was too scared. The Hatter laughed (and kept laughing a bit longer than necessary).

"Your eyes, dear girl. I can tell just by looking," he said. "Now may I as k you to please leave, before I really start to get angry?"

"Yes," Terror said quickly. He grabbed my wrist and practically dragged me out of the room. I had to run to keep my arm from being pulled from my socket as we ran through a large building—all of it, I guessed, was the Hatter's. Terror dragged me through what I supposed to be the back door. It was weird, but as we stepped out I realized we weren't in the City of Glass anymore, but rather, a beautiful garden full of bushes with perfect white roses blooming on them. I did not ask where we were. I was growing tired of the question. Aside from that, I wasn't even thinking of where we were.

We stopped running.

"Terror," I said. "I'm not mad." He looked at me, a strange expression on his face. My eyes pleaded with his to not contradict me.

"The Madness here affects everybody," was all he said. I swallowed nervously.

"The Hatter was wrong, you know," I said.

"Come on, Hazel. And be quiet. This place is dangerous," he said, avoiding me. I steered my thoughts in a different direction, forcing them not to dwell on thoughts of Madness.

"Why is it so dangerous?" I asked. He walked ahead of me as we came to a corner. The garden was beginning to feel somewhat like a maze. He peered around it.

"We are in the Queen of Heart's garden," he said in a low voice. I felt panic crouching nearby me, ready to pounce.

"You mean Alice's garden?" I said.

"Yes," Terror answered shortly.

It was strange, but any mention of Alice's name was starting to throw me off. Alice, that girl who had wandered into Wonderland. I wondered if she had done it of her own accord… Perhaps she knew about its existence all along… Alice, the one who undoubtedly hated my presence here because I was people's free ticket to becoming the ruler of Wonderland. She couldn't want that. Alice, that person people kept calling me. I wasn't Alice. I didn't come here of my own accord. I didn't know why I was here. Was it all a dream? No, everything was too realistic. I think it's odd, I thought, but there must be a strong connection to people's Madness here and to the Queen of Hearts…

I felt a drop of rain. I looked up at the sky. The sky, which always seemed to be a different shade of blue every time I glanced up, was now full of clouds and beginning to pour rain. We walked in complete silence. I wondered if Alice had demented bunnies working for her. It struck me as a possibility. And she probably had people who tended to these gardens, who might see us sneaking around, now drenched to the bone as the rain was falling in buckets now.

"Terror," I said in a low voice, "why did you take me here?" He did not turn to look at me; he was too busy searching if the way was clear or not.

"I didn't mean to," he whispered back. "The Hatter's back door always leads to different places…"

The sleeve of my dress got caught on a roses' thorn. I yanked it off and glared murderously at the rose that dare do such a thing. A perfect, white rose… _And there was a feeling of dread as with a knife in hand, Alice turned the petals red… _

A high, cold cry tore through the sound of the rain.

"Terror," I hissed. "Listen." He stopped walking abruptly. The sound came again, crying out eerily.

"What were you thinking?" he questioned me, his eyes flashing with anger.

"Nothing this time!" I said. His eyes darkened.

"Then somebody sent this one," he muttered. He seemed to stiffen for a second. "Don't look at me."

"What—"

His face broke into that insane grin. "Don't look at me, Alice. Here it comes."

This Madness, I thought. It was getting on my nerves… But at least I was a little prepared for it this time… I stood back to back with a Mad Terror, completely weaponless, soaking wet, waiting. A bush shuddered, and then a large black shadow emerged. The Devourer stood. It didn't hesitate. It only had eyes for me. It ran forward, its sideways mouth opening. Its claws reached me first. I managed to stumble aside; its claws scraped my arm, the arm that had already been injured once before. Blood spattered on the rose bush behind me. Those roses, the roses that had been white before, now dripped red.

"They sicken me," I muttered. I didn't even notice that Terror charged the beast.

_Oh, Alice. You grow Mad so easily, do you not? _

Terror got tossed aside by the Devourer.

"Watch out!" he shouted at me, his Madness releasing its hold on him. His dagger flew away from him, spinning. It landed at my feet. I bent down. Everything was now completely calm. Slowly, I stood up with the thing, and I felt my lips curve upwards slightly. I did not realize what I was doing; it was as though I was not me. I charged. The Devourer's teeth suddenly were close to my face, but it melted into shadow as I plunged the knife deep into its body. I faced Terror, realization hitting me…

"Here," I said. "Your dagger."

He stared.

"Take it," I said. I didn't want to hold the thing. It completed the picture too perfectly. He shook his head.

"No. You need a weapon anyway. I have a spare."

I grew annoyed. Everything in this place wanted me to become that reflection. I could feel it. I didn't want it though. I fought the feeling.

"Fine," I said. "I don't have anywhere to store the thing, though."

"Here, use this," he said, handing me a black belt with a sheath attached to it.

"But don't you need that?" I asked, taking it and fastening it around my waist and slipping my dagger into it.

"I have other places in which I can hide a dagger. Trust me," he said.

And then, without warning, Terror collapsed. Standing over him with sword in hand was a strikingly beautiful woman. Her hair was wavy—a natural brunette, and I caught sight of a tattoo on her right arm. A tattoo that seemed to form the letter "A" in intricate patterns. They looked like the thorns of roses. Her eyes locked with mine; they were a blazing red. Not the red that I associated with Madness, though, it was much different.

"You," she said in a voice that rang with authority, "You come with me." I felt I had no choice. I looked down at Terror. He was unconscious, not injured. I nodded, unable to speak. At the same time I felt fear. She started to walk. I stayed behind.

"What about him?" I asked, my voice slightly weak. She simply looked at me.

"The guards will get him. Come," she commanded. This time, I followed. I couldn't run. A thought did occur to me: use your dagger. I could defend myself. I could pull it out of the sheath and throw it at her, for she surely wasn't taking me anyplace good. It would be easy. Throw it. Watch as the pretty white dress grew stained and then leave her to die. I fingered it. I realized what I was about to do. The thought repulsed me.

_Why so hesitant, Alice? _

She knows I have it anyway, I told myself, battling myself. It would be pointless. She'd see it coming.

"Who are you?" I questioned as we walked.

"I am Ace," she said. "Be quiet."

And where are we going? At least, I wanted to ask that. I bit my tongue. It was a stupid question. She had to work for the Queen of Hearts. I knew where she was taking me. Of course I knew.

She was taking me to see Alice.

_To be continued..._

_I was going to add more onto this chapter, but decided you guys had waited long enough. ^^_


	4. Mad World

**Note: I'm picking this up again thanks to ****clairina19**. **Thank you. :3** **I own nothing, sillies. I apologize in advance for any unwanted typos. **

_She was taking me to see Alice._

Walking through the maze of the white rose garden in silence was agonizing. I thought, well gee, I think I might just die here. Or something. Or have to spend my whole life here. I said it to myself in a sarcastic manner to calm myself. I had no idea what was going on, what would happen to me, what would happen to Terror… I mean, at least if I knew for a fact that I was going to be killed right then, it would have made things much more straightforward. I would have had time to prepare myself. Strange way of thinking, but that's how I felt then. All I could do was walk and prepare myself for the worst.

The sky was darkening at a fast pace. _Nighttime so soon? _And the rain was clearing. The stars were beginning to come out and I noticed something for the first time.

The constellations moved. They weren't the constellations I was used to though. There was a rabbit and a girl and… I could actually recognize some of them. Like I saw the Hatter, up there in the sky. And the Cheshire Cat. I couldn't help wondering if they really were "just" constellations. That's around the time I caught sight of the castle. We were getting closer. It was huge and made out of what appeared to be white marble.

_I don't want to go. _

I stopped in my tracks. It was the strangest thing. I felt a wave of fear throw itself over me. A lick of cold touched the back of my neck and the hairs on my arms stood up.

_What's wrong with me? _

Ace turned around and looked at me with sharp eyes. The wooden black double doors that would lead into the castle were right in front of us. Only some marble stairs were in between me and the doors.

"Are you coming?" she asked. Her voice was sharp enough. I wondered what damage she could do with a weapon. I really wanted to say, "No." In the end I figured that'd be a bad thing to say in my situation.

"Something doesn't feel right," is what I ended up saying. Ace arched her eyebrows, then shrugged.

"I don't feel anything out of the ordinary." She walked up the steps, and without any hesitation whatsoever she opened the ornately decorated wooden black doors. It hit me like a brick, that suffocating feeling of… whatever it was. I walked up one step.

_You're just closer to seeing Alice._

Two steps.

_Alice._

Three, four, five. Alice, Alice, Alice.

I took a step inside the castle. Black stone was on the floor and I couldn't tell what it was made of. It looked like polished glass and I hated to step on it because it looked more like smoke than solid. I kept my eyes towards the ground though. I knew that whatever happened, I couldn't look up and I couldn't look straight ahead, because then I'd see her. And that would be very bad. There was something about her presence, something about her name that caused this awful feeling to flutter all over me.

"Welcome, Outsider."

Ah, dang, I looked up. And at first, I thought I was seeing double. There were two identical skinny teenage boys in front of me. They both wore the same pants and shirts. The only difference was one wore a green sash over his shirt, the other blue. Both had the same tan curly hair and fair skin and thankfully NOT red eyes. Blue eyes. Safe blue. And they hadn't called me "Alice" which was a definite plus.

"Let us introduce ourselves," they both said, bowing.

"He's Dee—" the blue-sashed one pointed to his partner.

"—and he's Dum," the green-sashed one finished.

The fact that they were bowing to me and actually welcoming me was surprising. That is, until I felt something prick my back and I was jolted forward.

"Walk." Ace's voice. Sword at my back. I swallowed and walked forwards. I studied my shoes. Black. Polished. My dress was still clean despite everything I had been through so far in it. Maybe that was why Terror had managed to look completely perfect—Wonderland clothing was apparently resistant to becoming dirty. That's when I was pushed and I stumbled to the ground, palms hitting hard ground. It hadn't been such a long time since I had cut myself with glass. My hands were still sore. The pain when they hit the ground was pretty intense and I'll admit that tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I noticed that a few feet away from me there was what appeared to be the bottom portion of a golden throne. I saw black shoes.

I dared not look up.

"Welcome to my Wonderland," a voice, _her _voice said.

I was very surprised. I had expected her voice to be more… More something. Instead it sounded immature and authoritative. But that voice also caused that fluttering, that feeling to wash over me.

"What's your name?" she asked.

The name "Alice" nearly slipped out my mouth. I stopped myself. I would not call myself Alice. Why in the world would I do such a thing?

"Hazel," I said.

"Well then. Look up at me, Hazel."

I didn't even think of disobeying. Her voice ran through me and made me look up, as though I could not control my own actions. I gasped. She was barely my age. And she was wearing the same dress I was wearing… Blue dress, blue eyes, blonde hair. Sweet smile that looked fake.

"Goodness, you look so mad right now, Hazel," she said and flicked a piece of blonde hair out of her face.

"I'm not mad," I said. I just said the words as they came. I could not think. She giggled.

"If you say so. Now answer me, Hazel dear. I have this burning question I must ask you," she said. She leaned forwards on her throne. "_How did you get into my garden?_" I blinked. Why had her face been tinged with red just a second before? My head was beginning to ache.

"The Hatter. His back door," I muttered. Alice's eyes grew wide and she clenched the arm of the throne.

"The Hatter? You've met the Hatter?" Her voice was escalating two octaves every other word. I nodded. She looked more troubled than angry. She swallowed. Then she asked me the strangest question, the last question I expected to be asked, the last thing on my mind. "Do you love him?"

My whole body jolted. "What?"

"Do. You. Love. Him," she said. "The Hatter." I shook my head quickly.

"No. Of course not," I said.

She sighed. I think she looked relieved.

"Now, one last question. What's the name of the boy who was found with you?" she asked. My head was spinning. This overwhelming feeling was ready to explode, or so it felt. I shivered. I couldn't think straight. I could only remember one name. Alice. Alice. Alice.

"A—Terror," I said. I had nearly said Alice's name again. I rubbed my temples with my fingers. I must have looked pitiful, sitting on the floor of the castle, sitting in front of Alice. I heard Alice get up from her throne, walking, and I heard her mutter a name. "Chaos."

I looked up once again and found Alice's face right in front of my own, her blue eyes glaring at my hazel ones. The feeling spilled over. Something switched on in my brain. Or maybe something switched off. I was suddenly calm, cool, collected.

_Hmmm… Yes, Alice. Don't be afraid now._

I stood up and flicked my hair out of my face… my blonde streaked hair… yes… blonde…

_Madness isn't all that bad, now is it?_

Alice backed away from me and yelled, "Are you MAD?"

"Yes, Queen," I said. Grinned. "You very well know how madness affects Outsiders." Alice huffed.

"You _are _mad," she said. "And I don't know, and I don't care."

_You have a knife, Alice._

I unsheathed the dagger from my belt and held it out threateningly. Alice's eyes grew wide, and I charged. And I kept on hearing that name over and over again in the back of my head. Her name. My name. Alice. Alice. Alice. I had become something like her. I have a feeling that if somebody had yelled my name, I would not have cared a bit. "Hazel" was not my name then. Alice. Alice. Alice. And the Queen of Hearts, the ruler of Wonderland, in my mind she had to die. She had to. And _I _had to do it.

"Guards!" she shouted. "Ace! Arrest her!"

A guard rushed in between me and her. He swung the sword towards my neck, but she shouted—

"DON'T KILL HER, FOOLS!"

—and he hesitated, and I took the moment to knife him in the chest. I pulled the dagger out. He fell. _She _was right in front of me, standing, looking angry. Not scared. Angry. Furious.

I smiled. A sweet smile.

_Roses' petals were so white_

_And there was a feeling of dread_

"ACE!"

_As, with a knife in hand,_

_Alice turned the petals red…_

Before I could throw my dagger at her, I felt a pain on the back of my neck. _She _was smiling and I felt burning resentment. The room went dim and I collapsed into a world of swirling darkness.

"Lock her away."

(O.O)

Waking up was very strange for me. For one, I didn't know where I was. I was lying down on a carpet of grass. It was light. But that was weird because I was at the bottom of a deep hole. There were four walls all around me about as large as a relatively small bedroom. The sky was blue up above but it was far away. The four walls, I noticed, were covered in vines. On closer inspection, they were thorns.

Another strange thing was not remembering my name at first. It took me a second. It had started with an "A". No. "H". Hazel. My name was Hazel. Then everything that had happened so far—up until reaching Alice's castle—came rushing back into mind. Then I noticed another thing. My hands were covered in blood. It was pretty clear from the fact that I had no injury that it was not _my _blood, and that was something that scared me.

And that's around the time that I remembered how I had been captured and brought to Alice. And how suddenly something had happened and I had become… different. And then I had killed a guard…

I had killed someone. Me, a murderer. I looked at my hands and around the room but there was no place to wash them. I repulsed myself.

I had called myself Alice. I had tried to kill Alice. My hair had turned _blonde. _I fingered a lock of my hair. It was black. Good.

"I'm mad," I said aloud.

And that's when I cried. Well of course I was mad. I had been hearing voices for a long time. I lay back down on the grass and cried for a while, staring at the blue sky. I hoped Terror was okay—

I remembered another thing then. Alice had said something when I had mentioned Terror's name. Chaos, I think it was. I wondered if she was referring to the actual chaos or somebody's name. Mostly I wondered what this "Chaos" had to do with Terror.

"Darling, you could use some cheering up right about now, huh?"

Due to everything that had occurred, it wasn't so surprising that a startlingly beautiful woman just suddenly appeared standing right next to me.

She had fiery red hair and silver eyes and wore a striking royal purple dress.

"Who are you?" I asked, getting up from off the floor. The woman's voice sounded… I couldn't place a word for it. It sounded familiar in a way.

"Hazel dear, don't worry about who _I _am until you've solved everything you need to know about _you_," she said, smiling.

"Then why are you here?" I asked. I was about to rub my eyes, but then I remembered the blood on my hands. So I wiped them with the sleeve of my dress instead.

"That should be obvious. I'm getting you out. Now give me your hand, please," she said. She held out her hand. It was white, clean. I looked at my own hand. Red, stained. I held it out and she took it. And then, suddenly, we were back inside of the castle, standing in front of Alice who was sitting on her throne.

I felt the Madness beginning to creep up on me, and without realizing my free hand started straying towards my dagger—why had they left me my dagger? Some questions I would never be able to answer.

"Calm your Madness, now, Hazel," the woman said. I pulled my hand from my dagger back to my side.

Alice looked up. She looked straight into the woman's eyes, and the woman stared right back at her. Alice's mouth began to form a name, but she never quite got to say it. The woman spoke first.

"I'm going to be taking Hazel for now, okay, Alice? Oh, and I'm taking Terror back as well."

And then we disappeared and I found myself standing into a place I recognized as the Desert of Glass. The woman was right next to me. I figured I should say something.

"Thanks," I said. I didn't know what else to say. The woman smiled.

"Goodbye, Hazel dear. I'll be seeing you soon."

She began to literally fade away, but not before Terror suddenly appeared by my side and caught sight of the woman. They both locked eyes for a second before she faded completely. Then Terror and I stood in silence. I looked up at him.

"You okay?" he asked me. I stared down at my hands.

"…fine," I said. He didn't mention the fact that my hands were bloody, and I didn't dare say anything on the matter either. "You?"

"Fine," he said. "I've been in tighter situations."

We began walking in silence. "Do you know that woman?" I asked.

He shrugged. "No. I've never seen her before."

And that was when the Cheshire Cat suddenly appeared right next to me, his arm around my shoulder.

"Come now, Terror. Nobody likes a liar," he said.

Nothing could surprise me by then.

"I don't know her," Terror insisted. I arched my eyebrows. I tended to trust the Cheshire Cat's knowledge and intuition. Terror frowned.

"Fine. But it won't help anything," he said.

"Well, I want to know," I said. He sighed.

"Her name is Chaos."


	5. A Bene Placito

**Note: I hope you enjoy. Oh yeah. I have some shoutouts to make. :3**

**clairina19****: Thankies, friend. =) I'm glad you told me to not quit on this. **

**ILoveReadingAndWriting: Thanks! Terror is pretty cool. And Alice is pretty evil in this fic… And later, though, it's going to turn out that- *SPOILERS CENSOR* oh wait. That's right. I can't tell you. O.O [Actually… I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing hehe]**

**ThunderStorm411: Awww thanks. =] Inspiration came from American McGee's Alice, Silent Hill, that manga "Heart No Kuni No Alice [aka: Alice in the Country of Hearts]", and even some music. And even some other fanfics. **

**James Birdsong: Thank you so much. You've been here since the beginning and you STILL feel up to reading it. That means so much.**

_Her name is Chaos. _

We walked on for a while before I said something.

"Alice mentioned something about Chaos when I told her your name," I said. Terror stared at me accusingly.

"You told her my name?" he asked.

I looked at him suspiciously and nodded. "Sorry. I wasn't really thinking." Beside me, the Cheshire Cat purred.

"Yes, Hazel. I think you have something you want to tell us now, hmmm?" he said, swishing his tail from side to side.

I really liked the Cheshire Cat. One couldn't help trusting him immediately. I got the feeling he was wise as well. I trusted him more than Terror, even. But boy, it hurt sometimes the way that Cat could hit at something right on. No mercy.

The blood on my hands isn't mine. I could have said that. But even that was just running away from another fact.

"You said the Madness here affects everyone, didn't you?" I said. He nodded. "Well, it affects me too, doesn't it?"

I was the one feeling guilty and scared. But when I looked at Terror, I saw that he looked guilty as well. He had no reason to feel guilty.

"Yes," he said. "It does."

The Cheshire Cat laughed softly. "Come on, Terror. Give her a longer answer. I can already tell she's dying to know _why_." Terror just stared reproachfully at the cat.

"You can tell her if you want," he said dryly.

The Cheshire Cat grinned. "Very well then." He turned to face me and for the first time I noticed that he had yellow eyes. "Hazel dear, if there's something to want to know that you've already guessed, it's that the Madness is always closely tied to the Queen of Hearts."

"Yes," I said.

He continued, "Generally the Madness all on its own is just the side effects of living in Wonderland and just causes different sides of people and creatures to pop up randomly." I couldn't help but think of that as creepy. "However, whether or not the desires while being affected by the Madness are dark or light depend on who is Queen of Hearts, the ruler of Wonderland. The Queen can control many of us through Madness if she so wishes. I'm sure you've noticed, Hazel dear, how we sometimes call you 'Alice' on accident. That is because the Madness inside of us can tell you are an Outsider and acts up. We see you as Alice in that state."

My brain swirled. "Can I make it so you don't see me as Alice in that state?" I asked. The Cheshire Cat shook his head.

"No, dear. Not at all. If we in our state of Madness see you as an Outsider who is not Alice, we would most likely attack you. It is better that we mistake you for Alice. Because Alice wants to be the only Outsider in Wonderland."

We walked on and as wind blew about, I desperately hoped that glass wouldn't fly into my eyes. But something bothered me…

"But the Madness must affect me in a different way," I said. The Cheshire Cat opened his mouth to speak but Terror interrupted.

"—don't," he said. "Don't say anymore."

"I wish you wouldn't hide any more secrets from me," I said. And clenched my fists. "I killed a person because of this Madness. I want to know what it is. And what it's doing to me."

Terror looked pained. "Fine," he said. "But you're not going to like it."

"I never said I would."

The Cheshire Cat's ears twitched and his eyes looked rather amused. "As it happens, because you are an Outsider your Madness is not ruled by the desire of the Queen of Hearts. Every Outsider that enters this place has placed within themselves the want to overthrow and kill the existing ruler of Wonderland. The Madness generally gets more overpowering the closer the person is to the Queen of Hearts."

Oh. So in other words, some part of me desperately wanted to kill Alice. That's what that feeling was. That's why I was hearing voices. It was a truth that didn't necessarily comfort me. I exhaled.

"No wonder Alice is paranoid about me being here," I said. The Cheshire Cat laughed, but Terror looked unamused.

"Yes, she's got reason to be paranoid, but she wants to kill you too," he said. The cat grinned.

"Oh, but Terror…" he purred and his tail wound around Terror's legs. "It's a survival thing." Terror jerked away and glared murderously at the innocent (mischievous) teen.

"Everybody's out to kill me it seems," I said. I chuckled bitterly. "It hardly comes as a surprise anymore whenever something jumps out at me or when something strange happens." The Cheshire Cat simply smiled and twitched his ears, but Terror's eyes softened.

"Not everybody's out to kill you," he said. "Some people are on your side."

"I have a side?"

"They want Alice dead too."

I know he was trying to be sympathetic and comforting, but that statement just made me feel worse.

"I don't want to kill Alice, though," I said. "I want Alice to stay Queen and I want to be left alone. And possibly get back to my home."

The Cheshire Cat nodded. "Homesick are you, Hazel dear? We can sympathize."

I looked at him, puzzled. But that's when Terror said, "Here's the Looking Glass."

It was a déjà vu moment.

"I don't like those things," I said nervously. Both the cat and Terror laughed. I gestured for the cat to jump in ahead of me, but he shook his head.

"Ladies first," Terror said. I frowned at both of them.

"Be that way," I muttered. I placed my finger on the Looking Glass as I had done before and I saw her face again—Alice's. It sent that feeling over me, just by seeing her. An wave of anger in my stomach, an itching feeling in my fingers to handle the dagger. Everything was dipped in red. And then I felt the familiar feeling of hotness and dizziness, saw the familiar colour and lights and heard whispers all about me.

_Long live the Queen of Hearts… _

I saw Alice dressed in a beautiful crimson ball gown, smelling a red rose, a sinister shadow always haunting her every move, poised to strike at any time. I saw those who lived in Wonderland being forced to bow down to her rule, always unable to fight against her will, but always wanting her to leave them…

A woman's voice tickled my ear. _She's killing us all. _

_Kill her. Overthrow her. _

_Hazel dear. Give me the throne. _

_When nobody is ruler, chaos reigns._

And then the noises started to get quieter, the colours fading. For the first time I braced myself for "landing". When I opened my eyes, I was standing. There were people and… creatures and things and around me. My feet were planted on a road made of some clear crystal. On either side of the crystal road was some building, and out in front of those buildings there'd be some musician having a performance. What was creepy, however, is that all the buildings appeared to be made of the oddest materials. And I couldn't hear the people perform unless I stepped off of the crystal road and into their spot in front of their building.

I looked down at my feet once again and came to another realization—wherever we were, we were floating thousands of feet in the air. _Heights. _If there was one thing that I was very uncomfortable with, it was heights. I stumbled backwards… and something caught me.

It turned out by my amazing luck that that "something" was Terror. Once I was steadied, he let me go and arched his eyebrows. I smiled sheepishly.

"Heights," I said. The Cheshire Cat appeared next to me.

"And that explains things _how_?" he asked.

I grimaced. Wouldn't they get a kick out of this one—

"I'm scared of heights," I explained. And they burst out into fits of laughter. The Cheshire Cat dabbed his eyes with his tail.

"I've never heard of that fear before," he said. Terror was grinning.

"That's so irrational," he said. I stood my ground.

"Where I live it's a perfectly rational fear to have," I said. I decided to quickly change the subject and asked a very familiar question. "And where are we?" The cat was still trying to get over my having fear of heights, so Terror had to answer.

"We're in A Bene Placito," he said. "It's a very famous place."

It was hard for me to imagine that Wonderland had "famous" places.

"—not to mention it's a tourist attraction," the Cheshire Cat said momentarily. I couldn't believe my ears.

"You get tourists here in Wonderland?" I asked. "Where do they come from?" Terror stared at me like I was a mad woman (now that I think back on it, technically I _was_).

"Of course we do," he said. "We get them from places Around Here and Over There. Mainly we get tourists from Out Yonder and Neither Here Nor There—apparently they're all boring places to live."

The sentence was so confusing that I decided not to ask any further questions of what type of tourists Wonderland attracted.

"Why are we here, then?" I asked.

"Because we have to cross through here to get to where I'm taking you," Terror said. And he didn't say any more on the subject which was a bit unnerving. Instead he stepped off of the crystal road and walked to the place where a young woman was playing a very strange instrument. I followed him, as did the Cheshire Cat, and walked closer to the young woman.

She wore a plain but cute black dress and the instrument she was playing looked like it was made out of white gold and looked like a saxophone… almost. But it definitely wasn't a saxophone. It was too long and straight to be a saxophone and its range was really low but it also could play the sweetest and highest of notes. She was drawing in quite a crowd.

"What is that thing?" I asked. Terror was preoccupied listening to the music, so he didn't answer. He was concentrating on the tune and looked completely into it. The sight made me smile. It was the cat who answered.

"That, Hazel dear, is the famous Barricanna," he said. "I would think that a Barricanna would be known in your Outside word too. I'm surprised you could not recognize it." I was puzzled, as I often was.

I was getting used to the feeling of being constantly puzzled. I just accepted this as the reality.

"Well, we have flutes and pianos and guitars and saxophones, but definitely no Barricannas," I said. The Cheshire Cat sniffed the air and twitched his tail about.

"Well that's very disappointing. Those are all the boring instruments," he said. "The Barricanna, you see, is the hardest instrument to play in all of Wonderland because one must be perfectly in tune to Wonderland and Wonderland's logic to play it."

"Wonderland logic?" I said, envisioning the idea. "That wouldn't make much sense."

"That is because all Outsiders are usually exceptionally narrow- minded," the cat said. Part of me really wanted to refute that statement. But the other part one out.

"I guess that's because the Outsider's world is so extremely opposite from Wonderland," I said. I paused before continuing. "It always helps for me to rule out physics and any sort of rationale." I heard chuckling that wasn't coming from the Cheshire Cat's direction. It was Terror who had momentarily stopped listening to the Barricanna player.

"You always did learn fast," he said. I smiled. Compliments were always nice and something I usually didn't get. The cat was looking at me with a sort of pondering look on his face.

"I think we've found out what our Hazel's gift is," he said. I gave a little jump.

"Really?" I said. Terror simply awaited the cat's further explanation.

"It's acceptance," the Cheshire Cat said. He looked extremely proud of himself. I didn't get it.

"… Acceptance?" I echoed. The cat nodded.

"Indeed. Acceptance. You accept things for what they are, Hazel dear. That must be why you're so good at adapting to Wonderland. You accept Wonderland for what it is, nonsense and all," he explained. He looked even more proud of himself after this explanation.

Terror seemed to agree with the cat.

"You're right," he said.

As for me, at the time, I didn't know what to think. But it did kind of make sense. There was some awkward silence which was thankfully covered by the Barricanna. It gave me just the right amount of time to come up with a good distraction.

"Ah, it's getting dark out already," I said, pointing to the sky. The Cheshire Cat blinked and Terror looked at me with questioning eyes.

"It is?" he said.

"Yes," I said firmly. "In case you haven't noticed the sun is lower in the sky than it was the moment before." It was. Barely.

"What are you getting at, Hazel dear?" the Cheshire Cat said.

"I'm saying that we had better find a place to stay for the night considering the current time. Either that or a make a move on," I said.

"Oh. Yes. Places to stay," the cat said. "I do believe she's right, Terror."

Terror nodded after a moment. "Fine then. We're going to have to go the next level down to find a place to stay at, though." The Cheshire Cat and Terror both looked at me with a mischievous gleam in their eyes as he said this. I grew suspicious.

"Next level down?" I said. "And how do we get to the next level down?"

The Cheshire Cat purred. "No worries, Hazel dear. You'll be just fine." Terror was trying very unsuccessfully to hide his amusement at the situation.

"We just have to find a hole. They're very common, as you well know," he said.

I sighed. Holes, rabbits in tuxedoes, Barricannas, glass deserts, Madness. But in a twisted way it made absolute sense.

Because everyone in Wonderland was mad.

So the three of us walked forwards, looking for a random hole that would allow us to go down (in other words, fall) to the next level below. It was by my luck that I nearly tripped into it. It was simply in the middle of the crystal road. Some people were jumping into it while other merely skirted around its edges.

It looked very black. One couldn't see where it would lead you. But I didn't dare ask the question, "Are you sure this is safe?" Because of course, this was Wonderland. The Outsiders' world's logic did not count.

I shivered. I was really beginning to think like one of them.

Acceptance. A good thing or a bad thing? In the eyes of Wonderland, accepting things for what they were seemed to be good. So I decided to go with it.

This decision still didn't stop me, however, from hesitating at the edge of the creepy looking hole. It looked more like a menacing pit, and once I were to jump it would be sure to swallow me. Whole, naturally. A very scary feeling crept upon me and it occurred to me that even with Wonderland logic, a pit that could swallow you seemed like it could be a reality.

Really, I was just having a good old fashioned panic attack. I was thinking too hard.

"Scared, Hazel?" the Cheshire Cat murmured. His breath tickled my right ear and I wondered how he had appeared suddenly right behind me. And then, to my left, Terror whispered, "I can help with that."

And with that he pushed me. Terror _pushed _me. He. Pushed. Me.

I was very angry with him for the split second he did so, but after I began falling and the blackness began to close in on me, I became too scared to really be angry at anything. It just kept on going. I just about had a heart attack when the Cheshire Cat appeared right next to me (again) and said, "Isn't this fun, Hazel dear?"

I gasped for some air and said that no, I was not pleased, in a very pitiful voice.

"She wasn't joking. She really is scared of heights," Terror said, as though he had been there all along. They both chuckled, and their laughter at my expense was beginning to make me laugh at myself as well when suddenly, in the blackness, we all heard that familiar eerie high pitched whine.

We all turned silent. Instantly Terror grabbed my hand. He didn't say anything, but his intention was clear. _Stay close. _The Cheshire Cat, for all his wisdom and words, did not say anything but fell in silence. But even though Terror with all his fighting skill was holding my hand, and although the Cheshire Cat was right next to me, the fact that I could see virtually nothing and that I was falling made me feel powerless. The Cheshire Cat's tail swished against my leg and Terror's hand held mine tightly. Too tightly, but I didn't mind. We were all bracing ourselves for what was to come.

I felt a prickling at the back of my neck and felt something dig its teeth deep into my right leg and felt it hit bone. That's when I screamed.


	6. Bloody Oath

**Author's Note: First off, I own nothing. Second off, thank you to all my reviewers. Clairina, I owe you everything. And everybody else, I seriously would not be writing this fanfic without the knowledge that somebody was reading it. That's what reviews are for. Oh yes, and MegartXD thank you so much for reviewing as well. It's good to know you're reading this. :D**

**If you are a random visitor and or are feeling lazy or something, please do not feel obligated to feel the need to write a very long review. Even one word will do the trick. ^^**

**This chapter is a longer chapter than usual. The minimum chapter length for me is six pages going by word documents. This one happened to just barely reach nine. So yay for longer chapters! And that's not even why this update took so long! I simply had to wait for inspiration to strike. And I'm also working on this other fanfic for The World Ends With You. So yeah. I'm juggling.**

_I felt a prickling at the back of my neck and felt something dig its teeth deep into my right leg and felt it hit bone. That's when I screamed. _

I remember the pain very vividly. I remember seeing Terror's eyes growing red and his hand tightened its grip on mine. The Cheshire Cat, I think, lunged out and was the one who ended up finishing the Devourer off. I never passed out, but the pain in the wound seemed to mask everything.

"Hazel," Terror said. "Are you all right?"

"... Hurts," I said. "I'll manage." The Cheshire Cat's tail brushed lightly against my wounded leg. I winced. It burned where he touched it.

"It's poisoned, I do believe," he said. "Nothing serious, though."

Poisoned, but nothing serious. Wonderland logic. Terror sighed with relief.

"Oh, that's it," he said. "Don't worry, Hazel. There's medicine in the lower levels for that."

With that little bit of comfort, I passed out. There's something about being Mad and dreams. Generally you just don't get normal dreams. You get strange faces and people and lullabies. The dream I had then was exceptionally weird.

"_Did you know that on Tuesday 1+1 = 5?" a twelve year old girl in a blue dress says. She stands in a field underneath one large tree. Next to her sits her sister in the shade. She happens to be reading a book._

"_That's impossible," she says. "Don't be ridiculous." _

"_Anything's possible," the girl says. The girl goes to bed at night. She wakes up at midnight to see a rabbit in a tuxedo._

"_Ah, so the dreamer has awakened. Welcome to Wonderland, Alice," he says. The girl smiles._

"_And what's your name?" _

_The rabbit bows. "You may call me Tane." The girl giggles._

"_But that's such a funny name!"_

_(O.O)_

_The girl gives a little scream when a smile floats in the air. It's just a smile, nothing else. And then a whole body appears. It's a teenage boy with cat ears and a cat tail. She gasps._

"_Why, you remind me of my cat!" she says. The cat grins, ear to ear. _

"_Nice to meet you, Alice," he says. "Welcome to Wonderland. I'm the Cheshire Cat. If you need help, call on me." Alice beams._

"_Nice to meet you, Chess."_

_(O.O)_

_The girl and the rabbit are walking through a beautiful garden full of red roses. _

"_Tane," the girl says, "Where are we going?" _

"_To find the Hatter's back door. Come!" _

_The girl stands before the Mad Hatter, who smiles down kindly at her. "Would you care for tea?" he says. _

"_Yes please. I do hope we can become friends." _

_(O.O)_

_The girl is standing in front of a terrifyingly large castle with the rabbit and the Hatter. _

"_Please don't die," she says to the Hatter. "The Queen of Hearts won't kill you because you ate her tarts, will she?" _

_The Hatter shrugs. "Perhaps. Most likely yes." _

_The girl weeps bitterly. The Hatter crouches down to her._

"_Don't worry, Alice dear," he says. "I'll find a way out of it." With that, the guards take him away into the castle. _

_Alice clutches at Tane's tuxedo. "What can I do to help?" Tane gives a wide smile._

"_Oh, Alice dear," he says. "You must renounce your Outsiderness and become a Wonderlander."_

"_How can I do this?" she asks. _

"_We must find the Hatter in the prison and perform the Bloody Oath."_

"_And then what?" _

_Tane laughs. "Why, my dear, you must become the Queen of Hearts, the Ruler of Wonderland." _

_So be it, the girl thinks. She does not notice the floating smile all by itself that is following her._

_The Hatter is in a very damp prison cell and not enjoying himself at all. That's when Alice comes in, and she's holding a knife. _

"_We must perform the Bloody Oath for you to live," she says. The Hatter blinks in surprise._

"_Why does it have to be me?" _

"_I don't know. But Tane said it, so it has to be true," she says. _

"_I wouldn't do that, Alice," a familiar voice says. Alice turns to see the Cheshire Cat standing before her. She huffs. _

"_Chess, you aren't supposed to be here." _

"_I am wherever I am," he says. He crosses his arms. "If you do that, Alice, you will change."She shakes her head._

"_I have to do it, Chess." _

_The Cheshire Cat smiles sadly and disappears. _

_With the knife she runs the knife down the underside of her left arm up to the elbow. The Hatter does the same. They press their cuts together. A faint golden light goes from the Hatter and enters in Alice. She blinks. Something feels different. When she looks in the mirror, she sees her eyes are red. _

_The Hatter stares at her. "We're all Mad here, Alice." _

_Alice stands up and puts a finger to his lips. She doesn't know why, but suddenly she feels a burning attraction towards him. "Be quiet now," she says in a voice unlike her own. "I must become Queen of Hearts." _

_She leaves the dungeon, knife in hand. The Hatter is left with the feeling that Wonderland will never be the same again. Neither will his Alice. _

_(O.O)_

_Alice is standing in the middle of thick, swirling mist._

"_Can I trust you, then?" she asks. _

"_Yes," says a haughty female voice. "I am the essence of confusion. I can lure Outsiders into Wonderland. It's such an easy thing to do. But you must pay the price." _

"_What is that?" Alice asks. _

"_If you are ever killed, then I will rule Wonderland. Understand?" _

_Alice giggles. "Well, yes, of course. That does make sense. When nobody rules, Chaos reigns."_

_The voice also laughs. "Yes indeed. Then we have an agreement." _

_(O.O)_

_A boy is wandering through the Rose Wood, wondering where he is and how he got there. He tries to remember his name. What is it? Oh right! His name is Felix. That's when a shadowy figure jumps out of nowhere. It's a girl in a blue dress. She's very pretty. _

"_Oh, hello," he says. "What's your—" but he's cut off. The girl pounces at him and holds a knife to his throat. Her eyes are red, he sees. _

"_Sorry about this," she says. "But without you I can't become Queen of Hearts." _

_The knife slicing across his throat feels like a fine cold blade. When she lets go of him, he falls to the ground. He tries to get up, but he can't. In fact, he feels like he's drowning. He tastes blood in his mouth. Tears prick his eyes._

"_Why?" he manages to say. The girl turns around. _

"_For the Hatter," she says. He remembers seeing the profile of her back as she walks away, and the sharp knife she's holding at her side. And he remembers a teenage boy with cat ears leaning over him, a sad look on his face. He wants to ask who the cat may be, but he cannot speak. _

"_I am the Cheshire Cat," the stranger says. "I'm sorry. She's usually not like that. Don't worry. When one dies in Wonderland, one becomes reincarnated into some other person or thing."_

_(O.O)_

_Alice giggles. She did it! She killed and Outsider, and she has become Queen of Hearts. The old Queen of Hearts had died as soon as the Outsider died. It's just how things worked. Now the Hatter would see her for the grown up girl she was. He would love her. Surely, he would love her._

_But on her ceremony as she is being crowned, as her eyes slowly turn blue again, she catches sight of him talking with a group of pretty girls… no… she must tighten the rules around Wonderland. She uses the Madness to her advantage. When everybody is Mad, they love only her. And by doing that, the Hatter loves her too. _

_The Hatter must love her. He must. _

When I woke up I had a curious taste in my mouth and I was staring at the ceiling of a little house. I sat up and looked about me. I was in what appeared to be a little cottage and I was sitting in a small little bed. But my mind was mostly on my strange dream. I had the most curious feeling that the things I had seen in my dreams had actually happened.

The Cheshire Cat was sitting in a chair in the far corner of the small room, reading. Terror was sitting on a stool right next to my bed. He was holding a bar of chocolate. I realized that that's what the taste in my mouth was.

"My leg feels better," I said. Terror was smiling.

"Chocolate," he said. "It's the number one antidote to anything in Wonderland."

I stared.

"Chocolate? Really?" I said. I suddenly wished that this was also true for the world I lived in. The Cheshire Cat was suddenly leaning over me as well.

"I'm beginning to get the impression that the Outside world is very depressing," he said. I laughed. But then I stopped. I remembered something that the Cheshire Cat had said.

"_Homesick are you, Hazel dear? We can sympathize." _

"Chess," I said. "What did you mean when you said you could sympathize with me being homesick?" The Cheshire Cat tilted his head sideways and purred.

"Oh my, Hazel dear," he said. "Wherever did you hear of that nickname?"

I looked down at my hands—they were clean and white again thankfully—and realized that I had inadvertently called him the name I heard the Alice in my dream say. "Well," I said. "I had a dream. But it seemed more like a bunch of memories. Memories about Alice."

Terror looked intrigued. "What happened?"

I thought for a second. "Alice started out fine until she took the Bloody Oath with the Hatter, and then she started doing all these weird things for the Hatter and she became the Queen of Hearts. But she wasn't the same."

The Cheshire Cat looked sad. I didn't like to see him like that. His ears and tails drooped and he didn't smile at all.

"I saw her when she first met you," I said to him. "That's when she called you Chess."

"Yes," he said. "I knew that Bloody Oath was a bad idea from the beginning and still she did it." He sighed. "The truth is, Hazel dear, we all miss the old Wonderland, and little by little, Alice is killing it. I'm afraid that what's going on with Alice is irreversible. There's only one thing that we can do."

I felt a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. "And what's that?"

The Cheshire Cat fell silent. His ears drooped even lower. It was Terror that answered. "We kill Alice."

I grew angry. "You know, if you guys are so wound up on killing her, why haven't you done so already?" I asked. Terror grimaced and the Cheshire Cat grinned once again.

"Hazel," the cat said. "You know how the Madness here affects us Wonderlanders. If we were to try and kill our Queen, the Madness would overtake us and we would turn into a creature of darkness."

Terror added, "So the only one who can kill Alice is…" They looked at me.

"Me?" I said. "No way."

"Why not?" Terror said. "We're treated horribly here, Hazel. Please." The Cheshire Cat looked pleadingly at me as well. They really missed their Wonderland. But…

"I can't," I said. "Alice can't help the way she is right now. I swear I'll try to help you some other way." The Cheshire Cat purred.

"And how would we do that?"

It was a no-brainer for me. "We figure out how to cure Alice. You said it was irreversible, but that was just on your intuition. We've got to find out for sure."

The cat grinned. "I was hoping you would say that. I happen to know of somebody who can give us spot on advice."

I felt better. I wouldn't have to kill Alice. At least, I would try to avoid doing so at all costs. And my friends appeared to be agreeing with me. I hopped out of bed.

"Let's go, then," I said. That's when I noticed something. "Where's Terror?"

The Cheshire Cat looked about the room and then wrinkled his nose in a reproving way.

"Oh dear," he said. "I knew he wouldn't be able to follow through. I told him this would happen."

I was puzzled and I wanted answers. "What would happen?"

That's when we got a knock on the door. The cat sighed. I walked over and opened the door and standing there was…

"Ch-Chaos," I said. I was surprised. I hadn't been expecting her. Then again, I hadn't been expecting any of this. She smiled warmly at me and stroked my cheek with her hand.

"Hello, Hazel dear," she said. "I'd love to stay and chat and have some tea, but I got wind that things weren't going according to schedule. I'm sure you know the feeling."

Acceptance, I thought. Even though I was confused I'd accept what was going on. I held a teacup out and gave it to her. I didn't notice until two seconds later that the teacup had virtually appeared out of nowhere.

"Ummm… Just one cup'll do?" I said, staring at the cup. The Cheshire Cat laughed. Chaos beamed.

"Oh my," she said. "You're a very fast learner for an Outsider. You should see the look on your face. How charming!"

I honestly couldn't tell you why I was acting how I was acting. There was just a strange feeling in the air.

The cat took a teapot out of thin air and poured tea into three cups—one cup being the one that I had provided. We all sat down at a small round table. Chaos sipped at her tea. She was dreadfully beautiful and elegant. Then there was the Cheshire Cat. He was just his own self, impressive in his own special way. I figured that I looked pretty plain in comparison. I sipped at my tea as well.

"Chaos," I said momentarily. "Terror disappeared just now. He knows you. Do you know where he is?"

"Oh, Terror," she said, sighing. "He's a helpless case. I think he must be drowning himself or something."

"Drowning himself?" I said. Deep in the back of my head I felt alarm, but for some reason I couldn't think straight then. Chaos chuckled.

"Yes, he's _very _upset with himself at the moment," she said. "I'm sure you know why, though. How do you like the tea?" I took a sip of the tea again. It had a very distinct pungent smell and the taste was like nothing I'd ever had before. The taste reminded me of autumn and falling leaves and apples. But the taste faded after I sipped it and it was impossible to remember the exact taste once it faded away.

"It's kind of nostalgic," I said. Chaos smiled again at me. She had a nice smile. It was very sweet.

"That, darling, is the taste of dreams," she said. I smiled back at her.

"It's very good."

"Wonderland's finest," she said and dabbed her mouth with a napkin.

The Cheshire Cat who had been silent before spoke up. "My dear Chaos," he said. "I was under the impression that you were on a tight schedule."

Chaos chuckled. "But when Hazel, the sweet girl, offered me tea like that I couldn't help but accept."

The cat grinned. "Oh yes. But what was that about us knowing why Terror's so upset with himself?"

Chaos looked mildly confused. "Did I say that? I don't recall saying anything of the sort."

That's when I began to break out of whatever strange mode I was in. I blinked a couple of times and realized how bad it was that Terror was missing. "Wait, I remember. You did say something."

Chaos stood up from her chair and sighed. "I knew I wouldn't be able to hide it for long. Oh well. Hazel dear, you should know that I've been very busy doing lots of work behind the scenes."

I just looked questioningly at her.

"Let me explain, then," she said. "The Cheshire Cat isn't the only one who can talk to people in their heads. I'm also one of the golden few. I've been the voice beside you all this time."

I gasped. "Then you were the one who sent me those memories…"

She raised her eyebrows. "Memories? No, Hazel dear. I did not send you those. But I have sent you a couple of things in the past. You know those Devourers? A couple of them were presents from yours truly."

The Cheshire Cat grinned at her, not looking very surprised at all. "You _have _been rather busy, haven't you?" Chaos smirked.

"Like you wouldn't believe."

I found my voice. "What does Terror have to do with this?"

Chaos frowned. "But Hazel dear, I know how much you like Terror. You wouldn't want to hear what I have to say."

"Yes," I said. "I do." I felt my hand unconsciously creep towards my dagger. Chaos noticed and smiled.

"Oh, so you've got a violent streak," she said. "I should've known when you killed that guard…"

I felt a pang of guilt in my heart.

"That wasn't her," the Cheshire Cat said. "You know that as well as I."

"Hmmm," Chaos said. "Maybe. Anyway, here it is like you asked. All this time, Terror has been working for me, Hazel."

I didn't really want to believe it… but it did make sense. And yet he had looked so surprised whenever the Devourers came. And he had wanted to protect me.

I smirked at her. "You were using him."

Chaos waggled her finger at me. "You shouldn't use an accusation without proof, friend." The Cheshire Cat grabbed my hand and laughed.

"You're proof enough," he said. "We'll be going now."

Chaos laughed. "See you later, then. But remember, Hazel dear. When nobody rules, Chaos reigns."

There was a sudden blackness and I felt the rushing of wind in my ears. The next thing I knew, I was sitting on the cold hard ground in the dark. It was night. The moon was full and appeared to be blue. The stars were pretty and the brightest star I could see was pinkish in colour. Once again, the constellations were moving. I realized that ahead of me lay a very menacing looking jungle and that underneath my feet was ash. The whole ground was covered in ash. It didn't give me good feelings. The jungle up ahead was full of dead trees by the looks of it.

The Cheshire Cat appeared next to me. "Sorry, Hazel. We needed to make a quick escape." Despite the situation, I gave a small smile and patted him on the head between his ears.

"That's all right, Chess," I said.

He purred. "Thank you." His spirit brightened my mood.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"It's not what it seems," he said. "This is where I spend the majority of my time." He laughed at the astonished look on my face. "It's also where we'll find some help, I do believe."

Something you should know about Wonderland is that it's never silent. The wind was whistling through the jungle and gently stirred up some of the ashes. I heard a strange bird's call. It was low in pitch and sounded frantic. It called out a few more times.

"The Jubjub bird," the Cheshire Cat said in explanation. "Fierce bird. Don't go near it."

I heard the sweet sound of something I didn't expect to hear out where we were.

"Is that a Barricanna?" I asked.

The Cheshire Cat's ears twitched and he nodded.

"A Bene Placito is above us. That's what you hear."

We were silent for a while once again. I heard a strange snapping and thwacking noise coming from the jungle and heard a roar.

_That'd be a Jabberwocky._

I glared at the Cheshire Cat. "Stay out of my head, won't you?" He laughed. Then I said momentarily, "Do you think we'll see Terror again?"

The cat smiled at me. "Oh don't worry. We'll see him soon enough."

I looked to the sky and found my pink star. The next few days would be interesting.

**If you could and you feel up to it, tell me in your review what your favourite chapter so far is. :) And tell me who your favourite character.**


	7. Felix Flower

**Author's Note: We're coming to the climax so soon! Well, this is a rather short series. There'll be a couple more chapters after this. ^^ As you probably noticed in the last chapter I said "**_**Jabberwocky" **_**instead of "**_**Jabberwock"**_**. My bad. It was supposed to be Jabberwock. Well now you know. Thank you to all my reviewers. This time a special thanks goes to Magic At Midnight. Anyways, in this chapter I felt that I had to add some little Jabberwock references.**

**Oh yes, as someone did mention (too lazy to look back) Hazel does have many flaws. She's just not that three-dimensional. That's because when I started my story, I didn't quite flesh her out. And it IS my first fanfic. So, yeah. :P I think I'm going to make a sequel and flesh her out more then. Magic After Midnight, yes, this story doesn't have many details to the point where it's kind of a problem. However, I found that on the Alice in Wonderland forums so many stories are hard to read due to the fact that it's written in this certain… style. You probably know what I mean. So I wanted this to be easier to read. I know, though—I do need more details and stuff to make it flow better.**

_I looked to the sky and found my pink star. The next few days would be interesting. _

Allow me to say something about the Cheshire Cat. That is… he is a very mischievous creature and while he is so very likable, he often does things without notifying you. Very independent. Very catlike. So I shouldn't have been surprised at all when the Cheshire Cat began walking towards the jungle.

"Chess," I said. "Isn't there a Jabberwock in there?" He continued walking.

"You mean Jabberwocks, right, Hazel dear?" he said. "Because there's more than one." This thought was not necessarily comforting to me. It gave me unpleasant memories—

Wait. I had never heard of a Jabberwock before… Yet I was sure I had run into one before. Sometime in the past.

_`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves__  
__ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:__  
__All mimsy were the borogoves,__  
__ And the mome raths outgrabe._

For whatever reason those words started echoing over and over again in my head. It was complete nonsense and yet I had a feeling that it meant a great deal. However, I did not have time to dwell on this strangeness (I felt I never had time to dwell on that type of thing), because I stepped foot into the jungle. The trees were all dead and were the color of the ash that was underneath my feet. Everything seemed to be black and white and shades of grey. It was maddening. I wanted to see a little patch of color somewhere. The blue on my dress seemed to dim down as well. That's when I realized something.

It wasn't just my imagination. Everything was black and white, including me and the Cheshire Cat. While I was staring at my now grey dress, Chess appeared right in front of my face. It always scared me when he did that.

"So I see you've figured out what's special about this place," he said. I glared at him.

"I wish you would stop doing that," I said. "And yes. Everything's got no color. What is this place?" The Cheshire Cat swished his tail about.

"It's what we call a colorless wasteland. They sprout in Wonderland here and there, usually in places where disasters have occurred…"

I shivered and wondered what had happened here. I looked behind me. I was expecting to see the clearing, the edge of the jungle that I had just come through, but all I saw were trees. I swallowed. I was beginning to feel a bit claustrophobic. There were strange noises and I swear, I thought that a Jabberwock (whatever the thing was) was going to jump out at me in any second. To make matters worse, the Cheshire Cat would disappear and reappear at random intervals.

I mustered up the courage to ask the one question that I felt was very important.

"What happened here?" I asked him. "You know, to create the colorless wasteland."

The Cheshire Cat, who had been skipping through the jungle a moment before, stopped and I watched as his tail drooped.

"Oh," I said. "Well, you don't need to answer if it makes you sad…" I trailed off and felt very guilty and awkward.

Only when Chess turned around, he was different. He always had a grin on his face or a lopsided smile, and his eyes had always been bright yellow. But now he was making a hissing noise and his eyes were black.

He disappeared.

My heart pounded. What was wrong with him? I wondered if I had said something to make him turn Mad…

Claws dug into my arms.

"Hey," the voice of the Cheshire Cat said, "what are you doing here?" He was standing right behind me, his face right next to mine, and his chin rested on my shoulder. But his claws still dug into my arms.

"Chess," I said, trying to be calm. "Stop it."

_Beware the Jabberwock, my son!_

_The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!_

_Beware the Jubjub bird and shun_

_The frumious Bandersnatch!_

He laughed. "Whatever do you mean? I believe you've mistaken me for somebody else." I stiffened and tried to get a closer look at his face. It was sickening. The face that had looked like Chess's the moment before was now morphing into something much more grotesque and fearsome. The claws grew larger and more curled(and they still remained in my arms), the face grew into that of a monster's, it's body grew and elongated into a thing that I thought resembled an overgrown bat that had merged with a lizard.

"I am not the Cheshire Cat, little Wonderlander," it said in a deep voice. I wondered how I could rip myself from its claws. And it had called me a Wonderlander. I wasn't a Wonderlander by any stretch. The monster cackled. "I'm actually a Jabberwock. It's been a pleasure meeting you, but I'm rather hungry."

I shivered in its grip. Apparently Jabberwocks had the ability to disguise themselves. The thing lifted me up like I didn't weigh anything at all.

"I was so happy to see you," he carried on. "Too many Wonderlanders don't travel here now and I get so hungry." He scratched at a scale. "You can't imagine. The hunger pains—they're simply _unbearable_."

_He took his vorpal sword in hand:__  
__Long time the manxome foe he sought -__  
__So rested he by the Tumtum tree,__  
__And stood awhile in thought._

I had no idea where that voice was coming from. Surely not from Chaos. She wouldn't be trying to help me out of a situation like this, would she? I shook the thought out of my head. The Jabberwock scratched a bit of skin off of my left arm (just a small bit) and popped it in his mouth. And grinned. "Delicious…"

_That's _when I lost it. I smiled at him as he brought me closer to his jaws.

"Call me Alice," I said. He loosened his hold on me and I grabbed my knife. I plunged it into his hand. He wailed in pain and dropped me.

"You're not a Wonderlander…" he trailed off. "You've got a Vorpal sword…" He stiffened as I knifed him in the lower part of his stomach. He fell to the ground. I raised my dagger again but suddenly I found myself staring at the injured body of the Cheshire Cat. It was a defensive tactic. But I was Alice, I didn't care a bit about that mangy old cat.

I cut the thing's head off.

When I came out of my Madness, I was holding the Jabberwock's head and its blood was pooling about me.

"Hazel! And has thou slain the Jabberwock?"

I dropped the head and turned around to see another Cheshire Cat. I backed away.

_No. Don't worry. I'm the real one. _

I sighed with relief—I figured that Jabberwocks couldn't speak into other people's minds. "Chess, stop doing that. I could've died."

He shook his head. "No, Hazel dear. You wouldn't have. You're an Outsider. Any weapon you posses becomes the Vorpal sword and you will inevitably slay the Jabberwock."

That didn't stop me from glaring at him. "Well, did you find who you were looking for?" I asked.

"In fact I did," he said, beaming. "And he's right here."

The cat held out his hand. I walked forwards and saw in his hand a… caterpillar. It was big and fat and blue looking. Not very attractive at all. I stared. That's when it spoke to me.

"You know," it said, "I could change forms into a woolly bear if you prefer." With one of its many legs it pulled out a cigar from who knows where and began blowing different coloured smoke rings in my face.

I coughed. "S-sorry," I said. "Didn't mean to offend you by staring."

"And no offense taken, dear girl," it said. "I heard you were seeking advice."

Yes, I was seeking advice. I simply wasn't expecting it to come from a caterpillar's mouth. "Yes."

"About what?" it asked me. "Don't take too long. I've got to be somewhere very soon." He stared at me rather impatiently with his tiny green eyes.

"A cure for Alice," I said. "She wasn't always this way, was she?"

And with that, the caterpillar sighed, closed his eyes, and blew his pipe in a very nostalgic fashion. "Oh yes," he said. "You wouldn't believe how different she used to be. Such a silly little girl. When she came into Wonderland, we all changed. She changed us."

The Cheshire Cat nodded seriously (which didn't happen too often). "She changes us now, too. In a bad way."

I felt bad for them. It must have felt like their best friend had betrayed them, but on an entirely different level. I knew I had had a friend who betrayed me. It happens a lot when you read stories, but in real life it feels a lot different. The pain is different. But usually what I find is you can always see it coming but you don't admit it to yourself, so when the moment comes it's never a surprise.

In other words, you find you've been lying to yourself the whole time. I wondered if that's what happened with their Alice. I wondered if they had been lying to themselves.

"I sympathize," I said. "And do you know of a cure?"

The caterpillar blew a green smoke ring in my face before answering. "Yes, actually. I've heard that the Felix flower is good for that sort of thing if you make tea with it and force her to drink. However, before doing so, you must find the root of the evil, what has caused Alice to act the way she does."

The Cheshire Cat reacted before I did. "Chaos is the one who started all of this."

"No," I said.

They stared at me disbelievingly. I bit my lip before continuing, "In her memories, Alice made a deal with Chaos after she performed the Bloody Oath with the Hatter. So it can't be Chaos."

The caterpillar nodded slowly. "I suppose you are right," he said and inhaled on his cigar deeply before proceeding to blow a rainbow smoke ring in my face. "Bloody Oaths are curious things, you know." He paused when he saw the downcast look on the Cheshire Cat's face. "Oh don't look so _down_, Chess, that's not natural for you. Alice will be cured, have a little faith in the essence of Wonderland."

I was about to ask what the essence of Wonderland was, but at that exact moment the caterpillar looked down at one of his legs which suddenly had a golden watch on it and said, "Oh, sorry fellows. Have to go. Pleasure meeting you, Hazel."

And he disappeared in poof of green smoke.

There was a pause, and then I stomped my foot on the ground. "He forgot to tell us where we were to find the Felix flower."

Chess shrugged and looked impishly at me. "You never asked, Hazel dear."

I realized my mistake. "Woops," I sighed.

And then I had a horrifying moment as I was silent and remembered how Terror was gone and how awful it would be if Chaos was planning to do something nasty to him. I shivered. The Cheshire Cat had said we would be seeing Terror again. I would believe him.

"Chess," I said. "Do you know where the Felix flower is?"

He swished his tail and nodded. "Yes, of course I do, Hazel dear. It's a very famous flower around these parts. In fact, I was the one who _named _it." He looked extremely proud of himself.

"Really?" I asked—not surprised that he knew where to find it but more surprised that he had named it. "Then where is it?"

He grinned at me. "Look up."

I did so and through the tops of the dead, colorless trees I saw the stars and was so happy to see them because they were colorful still. And I found my pink star. "You mean the stars?"

He purred. "The Felix flower is a star. Well, it's a flower still, technically."

I whirled around to face him. "It's a star? How are we going to get it?"

Chess looked reprovingly at me. "Yes. The pink one. Come now, Hazel dear. Use that Wonderlander inside of you to figure this one out. It isn't that hard."

A test? Now? But I had learned that I had to accept things in Wonderland, however strange they were, as the truth. Physics? No such thing. If you needed something, you could have it quite suddenly. Like pulling a teacup out of midair. A star? Yes, I could do that. To the sky, the ground was the ceiling of the world. It all had to do with…

"Perspective," I said. "Is it possible to change one's perspective in Wonderland?"

Chess appeared delighted. "Yes, of course. I'm glad you figured that out. It's quite normal for us, you know. Now close your eyes and imagine that the sky is the ground…"

Let me say it now that it's a most peculiar feeling to switch perspectives like that. For me especially. Having a different perspective all the time in Wonderland must have been quite normal but for me, an Outsider, I had had only one perspective for the entirety of my life. It actually kind of bothered me that I had been so narrow minded.

When I opened my eyes, I was standing in a field of flowers that were floating over thin air. Yet I was standing on them. They glowed softly.

Chess laughed at me. "Don't look down, whatever you do."

So, naturally, I looked. And nearly fainted. We were extremely high up and down below I could see the ground laid out like a quilt before me. It looked much different from up here, though.

"I _told _you not to," he said mischievously. I glared at him.

"You knew I'd look if you said that."

He looked very full of himself and grinned at me. Eventually I just smiled and let it go. I walked forwards on the tops of the glowing colorful flowers.

"Now which one's the Felix flower," I said to myself. It would be the only pink one—my pink star, I thought to myself. The Cheshire Cat walked silently behind me.

"You know, the Felix flower and the colorless wasteland below are tied together," he said. I searched for the flower and waited for him to continue. He did. "Felix is the name of an Outsider whom Alice killed to become Queen of Hearts."

I was stooped down looking through a patch of flowers when he said that, and my blood ran cold. I remembered that from those memories. "Oh," I said. "Poor boy." My mouth felt kind of dry as I said it.

"He was reincarnated into a flower," Chess said.

And suddenly the "Felix" flower made more sense.

"So I guess that act created the colorless wasteland?" I asked. Chess nodded.

I could picture it too perfectly. Alice slitting the innocent boy's throat, him laying there, dying, and as he died so did the color slowly fade out of the forest.

"Wonderland must have known, then, that Alice becoming Queen of Hearts was a bad thing," I said. The Cheshire Cat arched his eyebrow.

"Really? Wonderland must have known?" he questioned.

I spotted it—a small pink flower—and picked it. "Yeah," I said. "I think Wonderland has a mind of its own."

Chess grinned at me. "Well spotted," he said, and I don't think he was just talking about my finding the flower. "To the Hatter's, then."

I wrinkled my nose. "Oh yes, to the Hatter."

The Cheshire Cat tilted his head. "What's wrong. Hazel dear?"

I shook my head. "I just… don't like the Hatter. That's all." Chess had a curious look in his eyes.

"Hmmm… Well isn't that an interesting idea… We shall see," he said. "Well, let's go down, shall we?"

It's funny, but when we landed on the ground it felt strange and I found that new perspectives were something I would have to toy with while in Wonderland.

The thought of returning home? It never occurred to me.

**Thus ends the arch of the Felix flower. I think the next couple of chapters are going to have more in them action wise. ^^ Prepare thyself. **


	8. A Hatter's Trade Secret

**Author's Note: Thank you so much for the reviews! ^^ And sorry for the late updates. I'm just lazy like that. Oh yeah. And I'm very sorry to those who have a thing for the Hatter. Really. I'm sorry. Because I have a thing for him too. I feel kind of guilty now. Oh, did I just give something away? Oopsies.**

_The thought of returning home? It never occurred to me. _

"Hazel, I realize you are enjoying yourself most thoroughly right now, but we must stay on target," the Cheshire Cat said in a rather scolding manner.

I knew I was acting childish, but I was having lots of fun toying with perspective. In Wonderland, perspective could be stretched and warped in any way I wanted. The sky could become the ground, the black and white colors of the wasteland could sparkle, or perhaps you wanted to look at the world in a sideways fashion. When the Cheshire Cat had chastised me, I currently was standing three feet in midair so I could toy with feeling higher up than usual.

"Chess," I said, "I had no idea that things were smaller from up here."

The cat grinned. "Wonderland is doing good for you, Hazel."

And at that moment my concentration slipped, I lost my perspective, and I fell right back onto the ground. Chess stifled a laugh.

"Don't you dare laugh," I said. "I've never been able to see things in a different way before."

"Hmmm… Yes," the Cheshire Cat said. "But perhaps that isn't a very good thing for you as you are now…"

Before I could even ask why, something else caught my attention. It's hard when a demented rabbit in a tuxedo appears right in front of your face to ignore it and to continue talking in a leisurely conversation. Also, I hadn't had a pleasurable experience when I had last met with a rabbit such as this one.

"Ah, Tane," the Cheshire Cat said in a completely un-surprised tone of voice, "what brings you here?"

The rabbit bowed in my direction and said, "I have business with the Lady Hazel."

I looked down at my black shoes—not dirty of course—and frowned. So I was a _lady _now?

"Just call me Hazel," I said. Tane shook his head.

"No, I've been given instruction to treat you with utmost respect. I shall do no such thing."

I thought about that for a moment. "If I do not wish to be called Lady Hazel and you still call me by that name, then isn't that disrespecting me all the same?"

The rabbit smiled. His smile was not like Chess's or like Terror's, but rather it was slightly insane. Mad (big surprise there). I couldn't help but think at the time how much of a strange person Tane the rabbit was. I always felt that there was always something behind him that I had to watch.

"What sort of business do you have with Hazel?" the Cheshire Cat asked in a very innocent manner. Tane dusted off the front of his tuxedo with his gloved hands (how he had five fingers I shall never know). I don't know why he was dusting it off considering Wonderland clothes don't get wet or stain or get anything on them usually.

"I'm afraid I cannot say," he said. I stomped my foot.

"Why do you always try and get me to comply but you never want to tell me what you want with me?" I said. I was kind of surprised I actually said that right after the words left my mouth. Tane shrugged.

"Trust me when I say I just can't."

_You demented bunny_, I thought fiercely, _then for all I know you could take me to my death. _

"Well, whatever it is, I'm not going with you to do any sort of business," I said. Chess nodded, agreeing with me.

"Yes, we're in a hurry, you see," he said. "To get to the Hatter's place."

Tane's long ears twitched. "Ah, but that was exactly where I was going to take you, Hazel!"

I blinked. "Now you feel like telling me?"

He winkedat me. _Winked. _"Yes." He faced away from me and started walking away from us in the colorless wasteland. I looked at the Cheshire Cat for a moment with a question in my eyes. He shrugged.

_I vote we follow him. Tane can't be trusted be but he can't tell a lie._

So we followed. "Tane," I said, "I'm going to assume that you know your way from here to the Hatter's place, right?"

Tane didn't turn around but said, "Hazel, if there is one thing you must learn about Wonderland now it is that a door will always appear when you need one."

"I see," I said and then fell silent. Wonderland never ceased to amaze me. It still doesn't even now, looking back on it all.

A word about Wonderland: usually long walks are painfully boring but it is never this way in Wonderland. Something or someone is always there to keep you occupied. Or something will just spontaneously happen for no apparent reason. Well, at that exact moment something fell from the tree above onto the ground. This wasn't completely unusual because dead leaves fell from the trees all the time in that place, but the thing that had fallen was gold—it had color. I bent down slowly.

It was a rose. A pretty golden perfectly romantic rose. And it also made me feel strange and fluttery inside. That feeling that I had felt before a couple of times that made me think that…

I was going Mad.

And yet, I picked up the bloody thing anyway. Roses were bad omens in my mind. I didn't like them because they reminded me of _her. _As I picked it up I noticed a small piece of white paper that was folded into one of the petals. I took and out and read the fancy cursive:

_THE HATTER IS MINE._

I tightened my grip around the flower and forgot about the existence of thorns. One of them dug into my finger and I promptly dropped the thing. "Ow," I muttered. Let it be noted that by this point both Tane the rabbit and the Cheshire Cat were watching with sincere interest.

"How curious," Chess said and twirled his tail about. And then grinned. "Just _who _could that be from?"

I didn't have to answer that question. We all knew.

Tane, on the other hand, tilted his head and looked worried. "It appears Alice does not wish us to go to the Hatter. Oh dear… but we are running out of time…"

I smashed the rose with my foot. The color slowly drained out of it as I did so. "And why exactly are we running out of time?" I asked. He didn't say anything in acknowledgment but chose to ignore me.

"Ah, here! I found his back door!" he exclaimed. I had to look twice because a large steel door just happened to appear out of nowhere. It had a picture of a dilapidated top hat etched upon it. Chess put a hand on my shoulder.

"Hazel dear," he said. "You had better lighten up. Your hair is beginning to turn blonde." I jerked away from him and he grinned at me. I fingered a lock of my hair close to my face. Streaked blonde. Sigh. I exhaled slowly. Lighten up. Visit the Hatter. Cure Alice. My brain was swimming with the things I knew I had to do.

"Come now, Hazel," Tane said impatiently. "We've got to get going!" He gestured towards the door.

"All right, I'm coming," I said and walked towards the thing. On closer inspection, I saw just how heavy the door appeared to be. "I suppose we just… open it?"

Tane shook his head. "No, this is the type of door you have to walk into."

I was momentarily taken off guard. I recovered in a second or two. "And how exactly do we do that?"

He sighed and walked towards the door and just kept walking. And then the door swallowed him. Literally. It opened up by itself and I could see it had _teeth_ on the edges and it grabbed the rabbit with its tongue and then it closed.

There was silence, and then—

"—Chess, that's disgusting." I crossed my arms. No way was I going to let the door eat me. No. Way. But Chess, being the stupid, idiotic, wonderful feline he is, wound his tail about my leg and said, "Oh, but Hazel, think of it from this perspective: soon we're going to have to face Alice and that's going to be much harder than going through this little door, now isn't it?"

Brilliant. "You're very encouraging, did you know that?" I said.

He shrugged. "I try."

I walked towards the door. I was close enough to see scratch marks and miniscule details on it, the dust within the cracks. I took one more step forwards, one that would take me into the door. In that one split second, I felt a strange sense of foreboding. A bad, bad feeling. Something terrible was lying beyond the door.

_I don't want to go._

It was like that time I was going to see Alice. Something… something bad… The door swung open and I saw its teeth.

"Oh no," I whispered. The Cheshire Cat, I saw, looked alarmed and reached out to grab me, but it was too late. I was spinning, I was traveling somewhere. I was wrapped up in something and it was moving fast.

And the next thing I knew, I was sitting on the floor of what looked to be a grand ballroom. It was circular and large and the tiles beneath me were alternating between black and red squares. Just like a chess board. The red tiles sparkled and looked like rubies, but the black tiles looked menacing. I slowly stood up. And then I was caught off guard again, because suddenly somebody was behind me and I had a knife against my throat.

"You're not welcome here." It was, most certainly, the Hatter's voice. I calmed myself. Forced myself to relax.

"I did get that impression," I said. Think, Hazel, I told myself. Something doesn't feel right. "Alice is very fond of you. Did you know that?"

He took the knife from my throat and turned me around so I faced him. He shook me by the shoulders.

"Yes, but what's that to you?" he asked. He spoke very quickly.

Think, Hazel, I told myself again. I thought back to the memories. The Hatter never seemed to be surprised by anything. He always had this… knowing look in his eyes. A thought, a simple possibility, flew into my mind. I don't know how it got there. It didn't fit with anything I had thought of so far, yet it made _perfect _sense.

I looked him straight in the eye.

"You work for Chaos."

He snorted. "I most certainly do not. You're Mad." He raised his knife and brought it down towards me. Without thinking, I sidestepped and dodged it and grabbed his wrist.

"Me being Mad has nothing to do with it," I said. "You work for Chaos. You ate those tarts then on purpose. For her. And you knew what Alice would do. You just went along with Chaos's plan. But you didn't do it just for Chaos. You were doing it for yourself all along. Just to have some _fun _toying with the balance of things_. _Do you think that's right?" The words simply tumbled out of my mouth.

He wrenched himself from my grip. I studied his reaction. He didn't look angry. He didn't look surprised. Instead he had this insane grin on his face. "I won't deny it," he said. He laughed. "It was easy for me, being Mad, to do so."

My moment of brilliance left me and I stumbled backwards in shock. How could he just admit it like that? I felt a wave of emotion that had nothing to do with me. "How could you do such a thing?" I asked softly. "Even if you were Mad?" The Hatter was the root of all evil in Alice's case, which meant that he was the one who had to be killed in order for Alice to be cured and for Wonderland to set right, even though it was the Hatter who she loved. It was just… wrong. Cruel.

The Hatter didn't look me in the eye when he answered. He held his knife and ran his finger down the edge of it. I could hardly watch. "I knew what I was getting myself into. I could see it. I knew that this would end up happening. I knew that when Alice came to Wonderland, she would be trouble. I couldn't stand it. But look at me Hazel dear… I'm the _Mad _Hatter after all. I do whatever I feel like it whenever I feel like it, and I never think about the consequences." He paused.

"That was always your mistake." The Cheshire Cat happened to appear right next to me. For the first time, I saw him angry. His eyes looked hard. It was almost frightening.

The Hatter didn't bat an eye. "Come now, Chess. We all never think about consequences here in Wonderland. It goes against our nature."

The cat hissed. "It was until Alice came along."

And then all hell broke loose.

He pounced on the Hatter. My eyes could scarcely follow the action it happened so quickly. I saw Chess, his claws trying to rip at the Hatter's throat. And the Hatter literally skipped and hopped around the ballroom, laughing the whole time. They almost looked as if they were dancing.

The Hatter pulled a white rose out of nowhere and put it in between his teeth. Chess saw his chance and dove at his throat. And then it happened. There was a flash of the blade and suddenly the Hatter's hat was on the ground and Chess was on the ground in a heap and…I nearly fainted at the sight. The Cheshire Cat's head was detached from his body. I couldn't move, I couldn't think, I couldn't do anything but stare.

"Let that be a lesson to you, you mangy cat," the Hatter said and placed the white rose on the ground near the cat's body where it slowly turned red. Again, I thought…

_They sicken me. _

The Hatter bent down and picked his idiotic hat off the ground, dusted it off, and put it delicately back on his head.

_He sickens me…_

I came out of my trance. I wasn't even completely Mad, I just felt nothing but pure hatred. I pulled out the knife that Terror had given me, hoped that he wasn't dead, and said in a low voice, "How could you?" He was your _friend _once, I thought fiercely.

The Hatter looked at me and blinked as though he had forgotten about my presence which made me even angrier.

"Well?" I demanded.

He shrugged. And then began to walk away.

_You've got a knife, Alice…_

I'm not Alice, I told myself. But I didn't care. I threw the knife anyway. Hard. It hit the Hatter in the back. He staggered, fell against a wall, and sagged to the ground. He winced in pain and wrenched the dagger out of his back. I walked up to him. He looked angry too.

"Idiot girl," he said. "You think I killed your cat friend. He's not—"

I didn't care a bit what he had to say. I held his wrist that held the knife and I looked him in the eye. "Die," I said. And with that I took the dagger from him and plunged it into his chest.

He laughed. Smiled. And then he was still. I breathed heavily and then proceeded to sniffle.

"I must say, Hazel, that was quite a show."

I turned around. Couldn't believe my eyes.

"Chess?" I said. "But… He… You…"

He rolled his eyes and swished his tail from side to side. And was suddenly standing right next to me.

"I told you once, didn't I?" he said. "Talking to people inside their own head, disappearing for a while, those are just a _few _things I can do. And I can also re-attach my head to my body if you wish to know."

My brain was on overload. Finally, I just sighed, relieved, and accepted the chaoticness of everything. I patted him between the ears. He purred.

"I wish I had known," I said. "I killed the Hatter… I feel terrible."

Chess shook his head. "No. It had to be done. Otherwise the balance of things would still be all wrong."

I remained silent. Even so, I felt a terrible guilt. First a guard, then the Hatter. The guy who Alice loved. I felt like a killer. A Mad, insane killer.

(O.O)

We exited the castle shortly afterwards and found ourselves back in the Rose Wood somehow. Chess was silent. I didn't say anything either. I kept on thinking about the Hatter. I thought back to the memories. He had been kind, it seemed, even if it really was fake. Or maybe it never was fake? I didn't know. I just felt terrible. And even worse, I wasn't as upset about killing him as I was the first time I killed someone, which made me feel even more guilty.

_It's always the hardest the first time… _

But I hadn't wanted there to be a second time. I hoped, very much hoped, that I would not have to kill a third time. Because I felt that whenever I killed someone, I lost a part of my soul, however cheesy that sounds.

And then I heard voices. Not as in voices inside of my head, but actual voices coming from somewhere nearby.

"…have to. Talk to her about it…" A woman's voice.

"No. I won't."

I recognized that one. My eyes widened, lit up. "Chess, do you hear that?"

His ears twitched. "Yes, I do. I think we found Terror again, Hazel dear."

**I'm so cruel, leaving you right here. Sorry. And I'm sorry for killing the Hatter off. ;[ But you all knew as soon as the Cheshire Cat's head was cut off what would happen, right? Anyways, after this series is finished which might be next chapter or the chapter after that, I'm probably going to write a sequel. And a prequel having to do with Alice. ^^ **

**As for the sequel, I kind of have an idea for it and it's probably going to be more laid back. Ah yes, I couldn't leave Terror out of this for too long. And I think the sequel is going to have a lot more Terror in it. I don't know about you guys. Perhaps you guys want romance between Hazel and Terror. I think I'm going to leave that up to you. I don't know how to write romance, really. But I'm willing to try for you guys. =]**


	9. The Queen of Hearts

**Author's Note: **This is IT, folks. The ending of my small little first fanfic ever. My first completed series. *sniffles* So maybe I'm getting a bit emotional. Eh, not really. But I do feel a special attachment to this story, no matter how dorky the story is. ^^'

* * *

_His ears twitched. "Yes, I do. I think we found Terror again, Hazel dear."_

Terror? We had finally found Terror? I felt a wave of emotions at once. Two being curiosity and fear—I had no idea who he was talking to. I felt relief. I felt anger, finally, because he had left without so much as saying anything. But I didn't let the anger get to me. Mainly, it was the relief that overpowered all the rest.

"I have power over you, Terror. We had an agreement—" the woman's irritated voice hissed and was cut off.

"—not anymore," Terror's voice said. He sounded… furious. And firm.

The Cheshire Cat started padding towards the direction of where we were hearing the voices. He motioned silently for me to follow. I did so, but I was lousy at keeping my steps as silent as his. Finally he came to a stop and I saw past a cluster of the tall giant roses (or whatever you called those things in the Rose Wood). I spotted them. And I clenched my fists.

Terror's back was against one of the large roses. One of the thorns was piercing his left arm. And there stood Chaos, pinning him against it. She was glaring at him, obviously angry that he wasn't cooperating.

"Do it now," she said. "You know what I've got at my disposal. If you don't do as I say I can always call upon a Jabberwock."

Terror said nothing. He glared right back at her. Chaos turned away from him quite suddenly.

"…Come on, now. If it's from you, Hazel can't resist..."

My eyebrows pulled together. What did she mean by that? Still he did nothing. She turned around, her expression furious once again. "Fine," she snapped. "Have it your way."

I didn't know what she was about to do (something bad, obviously), so I did something extremely stupid—I walked out of where I had been hiding. Terror caught sight of me. His eyes widened.

"Stop," I said. Quite calmly actually. Maybe Wonderland was doing me good. I was able to look Chaos in the eye. "It's too late. The Hatter is dead."

She didn't seem to like that. She gave out a screech. It didn't look right coming from such a beautiful lady's mouth. Then she froze and broke out into a smile. "Lies."

The Cheshire Cat appeared beside Terror, just like that. "His back door can't be found anymore, Chaos dear. He's dead. You know what that means, right?" He purred and grinned.

At that, Chaos began to shake. At first I thought it was because she was so angry, but instead I watched as she transformed into something hideous, something dreadfully familiar. Her scarlet dress turned darker and darker until it was black, her body crouched down so her hands and knees were on the ground, her skin grew dark black as well… fur sprouted all over her and her face elongated. She opened her jaws, those terrifying sideways-opening jaws, and let out an eerie high pitched whine.

She had turned into **(A/N: A werewolf. O.O)** a Devourer.

She… it… whatever it was, it lunged straight towards me. Nobody had time to react. Her sharp teeth were at my throat before I could blink. Terror yelled, Chess' eyes looked frightened for once.

But she just passed through me, melted into the shadows of the woods, and she was gone.

There was a period of silence.

"There aren't many times when I fear for people's lives," Chess said, twirling his tail, a thoughtful expression upon his face. "However, this was one time where I honestly thought you were going to die, Hazel dear."

My right hand was resting on my knife, I noticed. I hadn't even realized I had done so. I was shaking. "So did I." I turned slowly to face Terror, who appeared to be looking rather guilty. Chess did the same and gave him a very reproving look. He looked uncomfortable under our gazes. He ran his hand through his black hair, looked down at the ground, and gave a sigh.

"I'm…" he began and promptly trailed off.

The Cheshire Cat grinned. "Apology accepted, my dear friend."

Terror looked up in surprise and then arched his eyebrows. "Chess, since when have I been a 'dear friend'?"

The cat shrugged. "I decided it just now." He let out a purr. "You know what that means, right? When I feel like it I might follow you around just to annoy you…"

I must say, I felt kind of bad for Terror. Chess was known (as you all know) for being quite the mischief maker. And undoubtedly a prankster. But Terror seemed happy enough anyway.

I, meanwhile, was wondering what I should do. Part of me really wanted to do something to him. The angry part of me wanted to slap him. The other forgiving part of me wanted to leave him be.

He was looking, now, in my direction, a hopeful expression in those silver eyes of his.

I walked up to him angrily (Chess seemed quite amused at this). But then I stopped three feet away from him and sighed. Dang. The forgiving part of me won over. However, the Mad part of me told me to prod him a tiny bit…

"You could have said something to us," I said. "We wouldn't have killed you if you just said you'd been working with Chaos."

He grimaced. "Like I said, I'm really sorry. I'd been working for her for a long time, but it's not like I wanted anything particularly bad to happen. I just know Chaos well. She's just another troublemaker around here."

My thoughts came to a halt. "_Just _a troublemaker?"

He nodded. "Chaos is actually part of the essence of Wonderland."

My mind tried to wrap around that, but it refused to. Chaos, that woman who had been whispering in my ear, had been the one to put reach out her clean hand to take my stained one to make me feel guilt, Chaos, that person who didn't care about the Hatter, really, or Alice, or even Wonderland… she just wanted to rule. After all… "When nobody rules, Chaos reigns." And yet she is part of the essence of Wonderland?

Chess saw my confused expression. He was suddenly right next to me and put a hand on my shoulder. "Something you ought to know about Wonderland, Hazel dear, is that you can almost think of everything that happens here as part of a game. There always has to be conflict. Wonderland is almost never at peace with itself."

Terror's face lit up into a grin. "Something's wrong with Wonderland if everything is going right. Does that make any sense?"

The narrow-minded Outsider part of me exclaimed no. And yet… I realized the Outsider part of me had grown quite small in comparison to the part of me that accepted Wonderland and was beginning to know of its strange nonsensical ways. I smiled. "Yeah," I said eventually. "That makes pretty good sense."

Terror smirked. "It makes sense, she says. Perhaps she's been staying here too long."

Chess gave a sigh. "Oh dear, Terror. It appears you are right."

An icy cold hand was finding its way to my heart. "Too long?" I echoed. "What does that mean?"

All joking ended. Chess looked rather sad and Terror looked downhearted as well—he couldn't meet my eyes.

"If an Outsider stays in Wonderland too long, there is a risk that they will become one of us. The Outsider in them grows too small, and they won't be able to return to their world," he said. His hands gripped his cloak and he finally looked up at me. He gave a cheerless smile.

It was when he gave me the sad smile that it actually hit me… Never had the thought of turning home occurred to me. Never the thought of leaving this nonsensical, idiotic, demented, _wonderful_ place plant itself into my mind.

But they were right. Even though it seemed like I fit in perfectly now, I was still an Outsider. I had to go. At least for my family's sake.

_I don't want to go._

That voice, that part of me that always let me know when something was about to go wrong spoke to me. I felt kind of sick.

Terror looked nervously at me. "Are you all right?"

I nodded. I couldn't really explain it right. "I feel like I've been tied to some web of things, and if I leave it something very wrong will happen to me."

I couldn't go home. I had changed too much. For goodness sake, I had killed people here. How could I possibly explain that to anybody? It was something that kept me up at night. Terror just nodded.

"That's understandable," he said. "It's natural for an Outsider to feel this way, Hazel. It will most likely fade when you get back."

I felt a jolt. "I…" I bit my lip before I could finish my sentence.

They both looked at me expectantly. I looked down at my feet.

"I don't _want _it to fade," I said. It felt as though I were confessing some deep, dark secret. I went on listing reasons in my head, not saying them out loud. I _like _Wonderland logic. I _like_ things that make no sense….

I like being with you two.

But I didn't say that.

Chess looked actually in low spirits for once. "I'm very touched, Hazel. But after we give Alice the Felix flower, it's best you leave."

At that, we all walked aimlessly through the Rose Wood for a while, making our way slowly to Alice's castle. Part of the glorious Kingdom of Hearts.

_I don't want to go. _

(O.O)

"Hazel," Terror said, smirking at me, "this is where you singlehandedly killed the Devourer with my knife. Remember?"

I looked up at him. We were currently in the Queen of Heart's garden. I must admit, my severe hatred of roses still lingered with me and I refused to stare at them for long, no matter how beautiful they appeared to be.

Somehow the memory _did _make me smile. "Oh yes. And you went completely Mad."

He shrugged. "Well, so were you."

"Touché."

It was nice, just being able to talk. Being in the process of restoring peace to Wonderland.

And there we stood, in front of those marble steps. I grimaced. Last time I had been here, it had not been a happy occasion. And Ace happened to be standing at the two large doors, staring down at us. When she saw me, she frowned.

"And what, pray tell," she said, eyes flashing, "are you doing here?"

I opened my mouth. "We were—"

"—Do you perhaps have a suicide wish?" she asked. "The Queen of Hearts has ordered me to bring you to her on first sight so she can kill you, you realize."

Terror looked sideways at me and asked the silent question, "_Just what did you do to Alice?_"

Oh, just tried to kill her.

I answered Ace, "I do realize. But we've got some business to do with her. Please."

Ace arched her eyebrows. "Business, you say? What sort of business?"

That is when the Cheshire Cat pulled the Felix Flower out of nowhere (he can just do crazy things like that). "This sort of business," he said and grinned.

She nearly dropped her sword. "The Felix Flower?"

Obviously she got finally got the gravity of the situation. I sighed. "Yes."

She was silent for a moment and looked at us with calculating eyes. Then that hard thing in her eyes seemed to melt away. She looked in that moment… tired. If only I could stay, I felt myself thinking. I could get to know this person.

She opened the large doors. "Go on in."

We did so.

We walked on those strange smoky grey tiles and I caught sight of the two twins. Dee and Dum they called themselves. And there, sitting on her thrown, dressed in royal clothing, and looking as though she wanted to _murder _us was Alice.

It occurred to me for once that she was very young.

"Ace," she snapped. "Why did you let them in?"

Ace sighed. "They said they had business to discuss with you, Your Majesty," she said. "And the Outsider is here as well."

Alice's eyes softened a bit. "Yes, yes, I see that. Thank you, Ace. You may leave."

Ace tossed her hair over her shoulder, turned abruptly around, and left, her shoes making clacking sounds upon the hard floor.

As soon as she left, Alice stood up from her throne, her eyes blazing. "What sort of business do you say you have with me?"

The Cheshire Cat stepped forwards. "Alice, be calm," he said, purring. "We brought you a special sort of tea. One that I daresay the Hatter would approve of."

The next thing I know he has pulled out a teacup and saucer with hot water steaming. And laying inside the water was the Felix Flower. It was so bright pink it seemed to be glowing. He held it out to her. Something in her eyes changed when she saw it.

"Why, Chess," she said. "You've caught me a _star_!" For one shining moment, she sounded exactly like the Alice I had seen in those memories. Memories that I am sure now came from the essence of Wonderland itself.

His grin became more of a smile, a smile shared between friends. "Yes," he said. "It tastes better than it looks."

She smiled back and took the cup. She took a good, long sip. She put the cup back into the saucer and was in the process of giving it back to Chess when her eyes suddenly widened. It was as though something had turned on. Or off. Or something. But her eyes looked clear all of a sudden. Not confused or hidden behind some mask. She dropped the cup. It shattered.

None of us moved. "Oh," she said momentarily in a shaky voice. "I think… I think you were right, Chess. I never should have made the Bloody Oath."

The Cheshire Cat looked quite mischievous. "Well, I'm always right, Alice. You should be used to that by now."

I took a small step forwards. "Does this mean that she's an Outsider now?"

Terror was the one who answered. He shook his head. "No. She is still a Wonderlander. She has stayed in Wonderland far too long to ever be able to go back to the Outside world."

He looked me in the eye. It was clear what he was trying to tell me:

_It's time to leave._

(O.O)

To this very moment, I wish I had the time to have said goodbye to the Cheshire Cat. However, he stayed with Alice. He had to explain to her what had happened. He had to explain to her everything about Chaos and the Hatter. I felt sympathy for her. Goodness knows she'd feel guilty. But… everything hadn't been her fault.

Instead it was me and Terror, walking out of the castle and standing there in the rose garden, saying our goodbyes.

"Terror," I asked, "how does one get back to the Outside world?"

He stared at me and threw up his hands in exasperation. "Come on, Hazel. You should know this by now. In Wonderland a door will always appear when you need one. Wonderland knows you need to go back."

I stood there and thought, _I need a way to get back home. _I felt kind of like Dorothy. Click your heels three times and say, "There's no place like home." However, I didn't want to go home. I just knew that I needed to go home. There is a big difference between the two.

Plus it was hinted that Dorothy had been dreaming. I was certain now, this was not some dream. This was real. Wonderland was real.

It had to be.

Even if it did exist in only dreams. That didn't mean it wasn't real.

Sure enough, something did appear. Though it wasn't a door. It was a wide gaping hole. I looked down in it. It was all black inside and I could not see the bottom.

Oh dear. Now I really didn't want to go. "Despite everything," I said, "I don't think I shall ever get used to Wonderland's mode of travel."

Terror grinned. "I'll miss making fun of you."

I swallowed, suddenly holding back tears. And I knew that I would miss everything.

"Yeah," I said, my throat tight. "I'll miss that too."

And with that he stopped smiling. "There will be a next time," he told me. "Stay in the Outside world for a year or two. And if you feel like you need to come back, Wonderland will welcome you. And you can stay forever if you like next time."

I don't know if Terror has any idea now how much those words meant. It was true, then. _I could come back._ I hoped that I would.

"Thanks," I said.

He nodded. "I'll be the one to come and get you next time. Instead of Tane."

I couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah," I said. "I'd like that, definitely."

With that we both stared at the hole, a sort of awkward and heavy silence ensuing. He suddenly turned to me, confused.

"Aren't you going to jump now?"

I looked sheepishly up at him. "Well, I was going to, but…"

A ghost of a smile was on his face. "But?"

I said it in a rush. "I'm scared to."

He sighed. "I've no choice then."

He came up behind me. For one short moment, he gave me a hug. And then, without warning, he pushed me. Terror _pushed _me. He. Pushed. Me.

Déjà vu.

Only I heard his words as I fell.

"Good bye."

(O.O)

_Alice jumped through the looking glass_

_Into a world so grand_

_She fell, fell, very fast_

_And found her Wonderland_

I fell, but I wasn't really falling. I wasn't scared. I think, to be honest, I was falling upwards. To someplace.

Home.

The familiar lullaby played itself in my ears and I welcomed it. I held onto it. For one moment I closed my eyes, going through each and every memory of Wonderland. They would have peace, now, wouldn't they? I wished I could see it. All of them, happy. Even that strange girl Alice. For some strange reason, I felt like it had been her Wonderland after all.

But a bit of me said that it was my Wonderland now, too, that I had somehow been connected to it and nothing could change that.

When I opened my eyes, I was staring at a familiar ceiling. I was under covers. I was in bed, on my side. I turned over onto my back. I felt something prick me.

"Ow," I muttered, and sat up. And there was a white rose.

I smiled.

* * *

**Author's Note [YOU MUST READ THIS]: **So there you have it, the end of Nightmare Dream: Tales of Chaos. It has been a joy writing the whole thing. I might write an epilogue, so stay tuned for a while.

There will be a sequel, I'm sure. And no matter what, Terror and Hazel will be very good friends. ^^ Still wondering about the romance. Part of me is v-e-r-y tempted. It's almost as if they're begging me.

"PLEASE, NATALIE, DO SOME ROMANCE!" – Hazel.

Terror- *hides behind pillow*

… See? O.O But I'm a bit nervous to do so.

Anyway, THANK YOU to all of my reviewers. You all get a shiny gold metal. If you have been reading this story and you have not yet left a review, please, please leave one. Just so I hear from you at least once. I'm now writing a series for Alice in Wonderland called Outcasts of Reality in which I'm trying a different writing style and I'd love for you to read it and give it a review. The first chapter is up.

**And if somehow you have stumbled upon this story** and it's been completed for a long while and you have gotten this point, still, _please_ leave a review and tell me what you thought. I always go back and check even if it has been completed for a very long time. ^^


	10. Epilogue

**Author's Note: Here's the epilogue! This is the end of Nightmare Dream: Tales of Chaos. Therefore, I expect **_**reviews**_**. XD I don't care if they're late, but do review as soon as possible so I get to hear from you guys how you enjoyed this series as a whole. ^^ Your reviews are really what drove me on.**

* * *

That brings me to now.

It has been exactly two years since my adventures in Wonderland.

Two years and I still can't forget a single detail. Two years and I still feel tied to that place. I have moments where I'll look at my hands and see them drenched in blood. I'll feel sick to my stomach. My parents ask me what's wrong. How can I tell them that the problem is while I was in Wonderland I killed two people? I can't tell them. They'd diagnose me with schizophrenia or something.

Sometimes I'll be walking home from school and hear something call my name. I'll turn around and see a floating grin but it always disappears. And I'll be sad and think of Chess. Whenever I see a boy with black hair I'll remember Terror and think how I wish I knew him better than I did. He had been kind and he had been the first one to _nicely _talk to me in Wonderland.

And sometimes I'll look in the mirror and see her instead of me.

Alice.

I still can't look at roses without shuddering.

I'm a senior in high school. I'm seventeen. I'm supposed to be able to get a hold of myself and move on but I can't. I just can't.

I sigh. If only I had stayed. I sit on my bed, smiling at the memory of running away from that demented rabbit, Tane. That mysterious _idiotic_ bunny. Meeting Terror. I remember his first words to me. _"You're in a bad situation, miss, did you know that?" _And, ah, Chess. I sip at my tea—

Wait. I didn't get any tea for myself. Yet somehow, I am holding a teacup. Saucer and all. The tea has a taste that reminds me of autumn... the taste of dreams. Wonderland's finest, I remember Chaos telling me.

You see, Wonderland has left its mark on me. I can't do anything without accidentally adding a bit of Wonderland logic into it. And sometimes, strange things happen because of that. So I know that everything that happened there, everything I experienced, was real.

I look forward to going back someday.

The mirror in my room glimmers brightly in the sun, and I think I see a pair of silver eyes…

* * *

**A/N: The official end to my first fanfic ever. Kind of sad, isn't it? But it was so fun. Please remember to review, guys. I love them. They make me happy. VERY happy. =] And remember to check out Outcasts of Reality, my new Alice in Wonderland fanfic. I'm trying a slightly different style. ^^ **

**Thank you all for hanging with me this long. ^_^ *gives you all brownies and cookies and such* **


	11. Author's Note

Author's Note:

Sorry I haven't given you a sequel yet. This is because NaNoWriMo is coming up, and I'm planning like mad for it. Sorry once again, guys!

~Nat


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